As most business owners would agree, time is money, so increasing workplace productivity should be a top priority. Though you may not always recognize it, bad IT could be reducing productivity in your day-to-day operations, regularly costing you and your employees.
How does bad IT contribute to lost productivity?
Outdated and unmanaged hardware and software can be a huge contributor to lost productivity.
“Any time you and your employees spend waiting on a slow computer to load or perform its basic functions, you’re losing productivity,” explains Jason Monroe, Solution Consultant at Bit-Wizards. “If you’re sitting through lengthy updates during work hours, that’s lost productivity. If you’re having to troubleshoot issues with your computer or software-based tools, again, you’re losing productivity there. All these things very quickly add up.”
IT-related security failures are another major contributor to lost productivity in the workplace.
“Let’s say your business falls victim to ransomware or business email compromise because you don’t have the proper security measures and practices in place,” says Monroe. “Now, someone has taken over your email or your files and encrypted them. So, you and your employees are basically being held hostage and you’re not able to work or serve your customers. Security failures lead to a complete loss of productivity in situations like these.”
How does lost productivity cost businesses financially?
Anytime you lose sales or billable hours because bad IT prevents employees from doing their jobs efficiently (or at all), you lose revenue.
“If it’s taking employees two to three times as long to get their work done or conduct a sale because of slow or glitchy computers and software, that’s a huge financial drain on your business,” explains Monroe.
When non-IT employees spend time on IT-related matters, Monroe says that’s also a waste of money.
“In these scenarios, you’re paying your employees to do a job that’s not getting done."
Finally, if reduced productivity in the workplace is causing your customers or clients to lose faith in your business, that’s costly to fix.
“If customers can’t trust you to conduct business in a timely or efficient manner, that can severely damage your reputation,” says Monroe. “And then you might have to offer special deals and discounts or use marketing and public relations services to help you change public perception. That’s extremely expensive, not to mention time-consuming.”
How can a managed services provider prevent lost productivity?
When employees or business owners troubleshoot IT problems, they tend to spend excessive time trying to fix issues that an IT professional could fix in minutes. Additionally, businesses often decide to live with a problem and apply workarounds that waste even more time, rather than finding a real solution. Both scenarios kill productivity.
“Hiring a managed services provider allows you and your employees to focus on your jobs, automatically increasing productivity,” says Monroe.
The Bit-Wizards Managed IT Services team makes sure your computers are updated, secure, and running smoothly.
“We’re constantly monitoring your equipment to try to prevent issues that could cause loss of work, time, or money,” Monroe says.
Our IT professionals can also implement and manage cloud-based services for your organization. According to an Office 365 study, IT experts report a 20% overall cost savings for businesses that migrate from on-premises practices to the cloud.
“Cloud services can make daily functions, collaboration, and communication more productive than ever,” says Monroe. “Bit-Wizards offers a number of cloud services including Office 365 migration, infrastructure optimization, cloud migration, and more.”
Finally, if you do have any IT problems along the way, it’s your managed services provider’s problem now. All our Managed IT Services clients have access to a dedicated Help Desk. Our friendly, certified Engineers don’t want you to waste time on IT troubles. Just file a ticket with our Help Desk and you can count on our team to fix the issue while your team stays productive. Ready to increase productivity? Get in touch.