Every business owner appreciates finding new ways to save money on operational or overhead costs. What you don't expect, however, is for your vendors to search for savings on your behalf. Most companies rarely do it for anyone besides themselves and managed service providers (MSPs) are no exception in that they won't go above and beyond to help with your business IT budget.
When you're tired of accepting the bare minimum and missing out on ways to make the most of your IT budget, Bit-Wizards is here to help. Our Managed IT Services (MITS) take our clients' savings to a new level with various processes and opportunities you won't experience with an everyday MSP. Here are 9 ways our team of Wizards goes above and beyond to help your business save money.
1. Software and licensing audits
Many people are continuously billed for subscription services they don't use, and business owners suffer from the exact same issue. As your services and processes adjust, your team may pivot from using one software tool to another, neglecting to cancel unused programs and subscriptions. Licenses for specific programs can slip through the cracks during a rapid reallocation or downsizing of personnel, meaning your business is paying unnecessary costs and missing out on critical savings.
With Bit-Wizards on your team, you pay for precisely what you need. A key part of our MITS onboarding process is the thorough assessment of each IT environment, including the industry-specific paid programs and licenses our clients use. Our team actively identifies opportunities to save money by eliminating unused subscriptions, so clients avoid unknowingly wasting their budgets. We also seek to help save additional money by finding more productive, cost-effective software alternatives and ways to consolidate solutions.
2. IT budgeting and forecasting
The success of your business depends on your ability to prepare for and experience the ebb and flow of the economy. While there's only so much you can do to predict how outside circumstances and unexpected costs may affect your budget, you can make informed decisions about internal factors like your technological and personnel needs. Unfortunately, the bare minimum you get from most MSPs doesn't include helping you future-proof your IT budget for easily anticipated costs.
Instead of dealing with surprise expenses as they pop up, Bit-Wizards can help you expect the unexpected. As part of our infrastructure optimization process, you’ll fully understand what costs to expect when replacing outdated hardware and software or preparing to expand your operations. Our team helps your business prepare to allocate resources where they're needed most by creating a timeline of upgrades and adjusting your IT budget to meet each fiscal year's needs.
3. Vendor management services
Waiting on hold for a vendor's customer support to answer your call for help is more than a universal inconvenience. Your business can't always recover revenue losses from downtime or lost productivity when a program or service goes down, especially if you can't contact the right representatives quickly. More often than not, your MSP is more interested in their business than your issues, leaving you to fend for yourself and sit on hold when you could be helping customers.
Our Wizards know every second counts, so we help you make the most of your time by working directly with your company's vendors. If you have issues with your internet provider, our team can contact the right support representatives and work toward solutions without unnecessarily involving your employees. Instead of spending countless hours navigating automated phone directories, your business can focus on what it does best while we work with your vendors.
4. Cyber insurance savings
With cybersecurity incidents consistently rising, cyber insurance is an essential expense for business owners who want to protect their employees and customers from worst-case scenarios. Even with its significant benefit of avoiding the consequences of IT security failures, cyber insurance brings an additional expense averaging from $500 to $5,000 annually. For companies with higher risk profiles or less effective cybersecurity measures, the costs can skyrocket well above $5,000.
By partnering with Bit-Wizards, your business can reduce cyber insurance costs while actually increasing your overall security posture. Our multi-layered approach to security protects your business from common cyberattack trends, reducing your risk profile and potentially qualifying you for lower premiums. We also offer vulnerability assessments and other proactive efforts, meaning your company can do everything possible to prepare for the worst without dealing with the real-life consequences.
5. New hire onboarding assistance
Your employees are critical to keeping your business running, and adding new members to your team brings new possibilities. New additions come with an adjustment period as they're onboarded, but getting them fully integrated into your business IT and operations is often a drawn-out process. The more time it takes to onboard new personnel, the harder it is to get them past the learning curve and into productive routines.
Our MITS team is dedicated to helping our clients' new employees hit the ground running by equipping them with the right IT set-up and training on day one. When our clients add a new member to the team, we ensure they get access to the programs, hardware, and security training they need to learn their new position. Our team ensures each client's new hires can focus on positively contributing to business operations without dealing with tech headaches or equipment malfunctions.
6. Employee cybersecurity training
A surprising but accurate fact is that employees are a company's weakest link when it comes to cybersecurity. While training efforts are usually boosted when a new person joins the team, most businesses settle into autopilot without consistently emphasizing security best practices. If an employee unknowingly clicks a malicious link or downloads malware, that business will soon learn the hefty costs of an IT security failure.
Instead of letting you neglect cybersecurity until it's too late, our MITS team ensures your team takes a proactive approach by providing hands-on training and unique services. We help you settle any concerns with suspicious emails by screening them for malicious content and providing alerts on attack attempts that affect other clients. With training resources, tools like password managers, and more, you can rest assured knowing your employees have learned lessons from cyberattacks without first-hand experience.
7. Energy expense reductions
Overhead costs inherently vary to a certain degree based on how much you use specific resources, especially when considering utilities related to power consumption. Most businesses depend on hardware and other physical technology to manage day-to-day functions, which can lead to consistently high power bills. As device management becomes a lower priority for business owners and employees, computers and screens left on for too long can raise electricity bills even higher.
With MITS from Bit-Wizards, your business can stop costly habits that consume excessive energy and start reducing your monthly power bills. We can implement measures that save electricity by powering down unused devices, turning screens off, and more while your business is closed. These efforts seem small at face value, but they can quickly compound into noticeable savings.
8. Merger and acquisition assessments
Businesses occasionally have the opportunity to merge with or acquire other companies and expand their already successful operations. While potential acquisition candidates may seem promising at first glance, many have hidden issues with their IT infrastructure that could make the merger more complicated. Without thoroughly assessing each option for undisclosed or unknown risks, operations could be hindered or halted shortly after the acquisition begins.
Our Wizards have extensive experience conducting IT assessments for our clients, and we can easily do the same for your prospective acquisitions. Our evaluations can help you understand the full scope of each option's potential, especially regarding the technical debt and issues your business may inherit. With our expertise, you ensure that any decisions made for your company's future are thoroughly informed.
9. Employee productivity reports
As much as they wish they could, business owners and managers can't continually monitor every aspect of their operations. When operational bottlenecks and productivity issues are hard to identify, companies can develop minor revenue losses that become consistent trickles of cost inefficiencies. These small sources of concern can significantly impact businesses if left unaddressed, leading to more severe problems.
When you need a bird's-eye view of your technical and personnel resources, Bit-Wizards can help. Using employee productivity reports, we can provide a high-level overview of your team's pain points, successes, and growth opportunities related to your operations and revenue. With a better understanding of where you can improve processes or reduce budgets, you can optimize your business functions for peak customer satisfaction and revenue generation.
Bit-Wizards has your back with IT and more
Your business IT may be a source of tech headaches and money woes, but it doesn't have to stay that way. If you're ready for a managed IT provider that cares about your company's success as much as you do, look no further than Bit-Wizards. We strive to be the perfect match each client deserves by extending our internal commitments to proactivity, cost-efficiency, and much more to every business partnership.
Ready for cost-effective IT that's customized for your business? Get in touch.