Many founders believe that the most difficult part of starting up is in the initial part – meeting venture capital investors, finding the right co-founders or employees, and even building the correct culture for the company to thrive. Yet startup entrepreneurs we talk to tell us that one of the most challenging parts of the entrepreneurial journey comes somewhat later – when they are trying to scale their company.
One of the reasons for this can be down to the fact that their IT systems and infrastructure have not been suitably built for handling growth. Worse yet, many founders encounter this difficulty two ways. It can come very suddenly – a tremendous surge of users that overwhelms a company’s servers leading to a total collapse of its IT infrastructure, for example, due to publicity from a well-placed Reddit or TechCrunch article.
Or it could come as a slump after a period of solid, explosive growth, where limitations of a company’s infrastructure and systems introduce inefficiencies or redundancies that inhibit proper scaling of the business.
In either of these cases, the reason can be down to the lack of proper planning. If you’re running a startup and wish to avoid falling into such a scaling trap, the answer may lie in managed IT services.
Some businesses may frown on outsourcing the management of their infrastructure and technology, but many of these IT management solution providers help offer take the hassles out of managing and maintaining critical IT systems, as well as offering customized IT support plans to satisfy the client’s specific needs. They offer a quick and easy way to ensure an effective and efficient way to scale a company’s infrastructure and systems, especially if the company lacks the necessary talents and resources to do it on its own.
Managed IT service providers offer a wide variety of solutions which can be customized to meet a startup’s specific needs, including server and desktop management, help desk support, cloud services, and even virtualization design and implementation.
But the most important service they provide? They take the load off the startup entrepreneur so they can fully concentrate their time and attention on core business functions, meeting customer needs and ensuring the long term survival of the company.
