Three ways we make IT Managers look like legends

Businesses have a huge challenge – to balance the cost pressure of tough economic times with the need for more IT investment.  That puts a lot of pressure on IT Managers.   

The answer is finding the right IT partner to work alongside them.

That partner will understand the pressures IT Managers face. They understand that that existing IT budgets are stretched thin, and IT is ever more important, and businesses have to get the best from the existing IT while being clear and accountable for how ROI is achieved for any new IT investments.

The challenges faced by IT managers: –

1. IT needs to keep your business safe, constantly check your defences, respond to issues and threats as they occur.
2. IT needs to be responsive to user needs because time is money, and almost everyone in the business is reliant on IT, so downtime is expensive.
3. IT needs to be proactive to ensure business goals are achieved. That’s ensuring that existing IT investments are achieving the business goals and expectations, AND applying emerging technologies, especially automation and AI technologies so your business can be more efficient.

Businesses need IT to deliver all of these without blowing the budget.  It’s a big ask. 

But there is a way.  It comes down to finding the right partner.

1.Cyber safety

Businesses need an IT team that will always do the vital, but mundane work of keeping the IT defences up to date, WITHOUT being distracted by the many urgent issues that crop up most days.

• If you have an internal IT team, you’ll know how great they can be.  They know what’s important.  They know your systems, your business, and your people, and their uniqueness etc in a way that no external partner can.  But it is only human for them to prioritise urgent support demands and therefore defer vital but mundane tasks.  That’s a problem.
• If you don’t have an internal IT team, then you know how important a reliable partner is, and your business needs a partner you can trust.  You need cost predictability with options for fixed monthly fees that cover all IT support, including proactive maintenance and fixes. This predictability allows for effective budgeting and resource allocation.   You need a partner that will respond quickly to the urgent support calls, and who you can trust to do the vital tasks in the background to keep your organisation safe.

Every day, IT faces urgent issues that need immediate attention.   But IT can’t do everything at once, so inevitably the important tasks like fixing backups, checking the xDR (today’s antivirus successor), patching all PCs, laptops, servers, even mobiles, running cyber awareness training, 24/7 monitoring of your platform and cloud services, and so on – there is a plethora of important tasks to be done to keep businesses safe.  But if these get deferred, then your IT defences slip, and who can afford that in today’s world?

Kinetics KARE is designed to work equally well with businesses with IT teams, as well as those without them, to ensure that these proactive safety measures always happen, no matter what else is going on.  Because we do this at scale for hundreds of businesses like yours, using tools we know, and with the best industry support, we can do this more cost effectively than you can.

In today’s world, the necessary security layers to protect businesses, aligned to the recognised standards from CertNZ and NIST, are more intensive than ever – and KARE delivers.  Dedicated teams with best-of-breed technology make sure these protections are always in place, and regular reporting gives you the evidence to set your mind at ease.

That means that your IT team can now focus on what they are best at.  They can be super responsive to user needs and apply their knowledge of your organisation and it’s people while your partner does the mundane but important.

Working with an IT partner gives you peace of mind that you have a team that is accountable, scalable and cost-effective to work with your business and your existing IT to help you get the best value.

2. Responsiveness

When your people need IT support, they almost always need it NOW.  The problem is that this demand can be hard to resource for.

We know that internal IT staff will always be best – people on site, with the relationships, the intimate knowledge of the business and its priorities. 
We also know that these internal staff aren’t always available – they might be busy on other jobs, or away for various reasons.

Having a regular support person from a reliable IT partner is key to supporting your team, whether you have internal IT or not. 

Our approach is to have pods, with a lead engineer assigned to each customer and support from a small pool of colleagues who are available even with the preferred person is unavailable. 

Expertise to deliver specified projects with the skills, knowledge and certifications to provide reliable, on time, on budget deployment of complex IT solutions.

Our people work to stand alongside and complement your internal IT expert, or to be the next best thing if you don’t have them.

3. IT as a competitive advantage. IT Partners need to be proactive.

All organisations are looking to achieve more efficiency and IT is inevitably at the heart of their plans. 

A good IT partner appreciates that organisations need to get business value from their existing IT investments, as well as relevant new applications of technology.

The key is to ask, “How are we using IT to improve business performance”.

Existing IT investments have to achieve business goals.  As an MSP, we have to understand those goals and be clear on how IT is expected to achieve these.  Having a strong framework stating with a business discovery and quarterly reviews is crucial.  The right IT partner has a methodology to uncover the specific business goals and expectations of existing and future technologies, and capability to beyond traditional IT support.   They have capability with ‘change management’ motions to work with users to ensure they can consume the technology as intended.

IT Managers know that new IT investments for projects such as cloud adoption, process automation, IOT, and now artificial intelligence are key to achieving business goals.  Businesses are looking to reduce operational costs, improve service and response times, mitigate risks and drive new revenue lines and they need IT to help them. 

The right partner works with IT management to bring their knowledge and experience to support the internal team, who know the business better than any external provider can ever do.  Because we’re out in industry, working with other businesses in related sectors, attending tech conferences and events, consuming education, and investing in learning, we’re up to date with the last technologies to help you get competitive advantage.

 3CLIENT QUOTE 

Kinetics is amazing.  They changed my life.  Everyone thought I was a sad and lonely IT person, but now I have lunch with the cool kids!  And I do hardly any work now… they do it all for me!

STEVE, IT LEGEND

Successful IT projects need teams that come in when you need, accelerate quickly and apply their experience to your business requirements, deliver the solutions then step back, and scale down to be ready for the next project only when you need.  Expertise when you need but only for as long as you need.

Kinetics has the experience and the methodology to work with you to uncover business needs, prioritise them and solve them.  Our “FlightPlan” business discovery and ITMaaS give you expertise only when needed, to quickly and efficiently identify the most important IT demands and ensure they get delivered on time, and on budget.

WHY KINETICS?

Picking the right technology partner is your secret to matching IT to the demands of your organisation without increasing your costs unmanageably. 

Tough economic times means costs control and cutbacks.  Somehow, you’ve got to walk the tightrope and doing more with less. 

The right partner with the right expertise and the right track record will help you do and achieve more with your current IT.

• Is almost 30 years of experience, and a broad team of skilled IT professionals enough?
• Is a proven methodology working with hundreds of businesses like your enough?
• Is a sophisticated platform of proven tools and processes, supported by industry leaders, enough?

Put all three together and the answer is yes, Kinetics is the right choice that you can rely on to get more cost-effective outcomes, better cyber-defences, proven support and business  goals achieved.