It’s no secret that your credit union’s ’ efficiency and success go hand in hand. When you’re able to maximize your output on projects and initiatives, either company-wide or within distinct departments without causing cost overruns and time delays, you will see a positive return on investment. However, when searching for ways to increase overall efficiency, one area that businesses outside of the tech industry typically overlook are the benefits of outsourcing their IT department.
Organizations like yours rely on their IT departments to keep things running and avoid crisis situations, making updates as required. By outsourcing your IT, you’ll not only be freeing up resources, but also creating opportunities to bring in experts and project specialists to develop greater efficiencies.
Below, we examine two ways that outsourcing your IT can help your credit union to run as efficiently as possible.
One of the most impactful ways that outsourcing your IT can increase efficiency is by providing proactive maintenance to your systems to reduce downtime and emergencies.
For many organizations, especially those with small IT departments, systems maintenance is most frequently comprised of a break/fix method. This means that issues of maintenance are addressed as they arise and are solved with the intention of fixing the problem “for now.” Does this sound like something your IT department is doing?
In many of these organizations, there’s an intention to return to the issue later and make stronger, long-lasting repairs, but it’s not uncommon for those plans to get pushed further down the agenda as more immediate repairs are needed. And so, members of the IT department are constantly struggling to keep up with their day-to-day responsibilities while important projects that could prevent further issues are delayed. This break/fix method of systems management is - obviously - not efficient, at all.
Hiring an IT service provider, either in place of or to work in conjunction with your existing IT department can help to alleviate the constant struggle of break/fix IT management. By addressing the break/fix issues while simultaneously addressing the larger problems, IT departments and entire organizations will be able to save time and money over the the long run. Additionally, once the issues are addressed and systems are being proactively managed, there will be other benefits. Initially a decrease in downtime will be noticed, and as systems and applications are updated there will be an increase in speed and productivity.
With an outsourced IT service provider, your credit union will be able to tap into the entire roster of your vendor’s entire team and their skill sets. You won’t have to rely on one or two IT team members to know “a little about a lot,” which can turn into a time-consuming trade off when trying to address complex workstations or network issues.
Instead, you’ll have access to specialists who know a lot about specific aspects of IT management, and who also have a broad range of IT knowledge. This means that projects can be completed by specialists while the IT team members continue to work on maintaining day-to-day operations. It also means that complex issues can be addressed correctly the first time around without much trial and error. Either way, both scenarios offer a huge opportunity to increase your efficiencies not only within your IT department, but also for all your employees.
To learn more about how IT can help your credit union can differentiate itself from your competitors download our whitepaper.