Technology

Co-Managed IT is a way for growing companies to get the helping hands, specialized expertise, and IT management and automation tools they need WITHOUT the cost and difficulty of finding, managing, and retaining a large IT staff OR investing in expensive software tools.

This is NOT about taking over the IT Leader’s job or replacing your IT department. It’s also NOT a one-off project-based relationship where an IT company would limit their support to an “event” (although we can help you with projects). It IS a flexible partnership to help you get superior IT support and services at a much lower cost than hiring someone. Our experts become an extension of your current IT team and work with your existing systems and processes.

Here are just a few of the reasons companies are moving to a co-managed IT approach:

We don’t replace your IT staff; we make them BETTER. By filling in the gaps and assisting them, giving them best-in-class tools and training, and freeing them to be more proactive and strategic, we make them FAR more productive for you. As an added bonus, THEY won’t get burned out, frustrated and leave.

You don’t have to add to your head count. Let’s face it: overhead walks on two legs. Plus, finding, hiring, and retaining TOP talent is brutally difficult. With Co-Managed IT, you don’t have the cost, overhead or risk of a big IT team and department. We don’t take vacations or sick leave. You won’t lose us to maternity leave, an illness, or because we have to relocate with our spouse or found a better job.

You get a TEAM of smart, experienced IT pros. No one IT person can know it all. Because you’re a Co-Managed IT client, you will have access to a deep bench of expertise to figure out the best solution to a problem, to get advice on a situation or error they’ve never encountered before, and to help your IT manage the day-to-day operations.

If you’re in a growth phase, you have to be ready to take on new contracts at a moment’s notice. But if your IT isn’t up to the job, rapid expansion can overwhelm your team — and threaten your ability to deliver on your promises.

Cloud infrastructure is the solution to the challenges faced by growing SMEs. It’s fast, resilient, cost-effective, and reliable. Best of all, cloud infrastructure is inherently scalable. You can spin capacity up or down as needed, smoothly and seamlessly, without having to worry about provisioning or unexpected costs.

Support Functions can offer you a fully managed cloud infrastructure solution — or a self-service model if you want to take a more hands-on role in managing your infrastructure.

No matter what you decide, we have fixed-rate and pay-as-you-go plans that provide transparent and predictable pricing. Our rates are extremely competitive as well: up to 50% lower than comparable AWS, Azure, vCloud Air, or Rackspace offerings.

Every business needs to prepare for the worst.

A single unpredictable event — be it an equipment failure, cyberattack, or natural disaster — can knock critical systems offline and result in permanent data loss. The cost of downtime can be high. The cost to your reputation can be even higher.

Big companies have their own data centers and offsite backup facilities. But for growing SMEs, that’s usually not an option due to the cost and complexity involved. This can leave them feeling as if they’re stuck with an impossible choice: do they overspend on hard-to-manage business continuity solutions, or roll the dice and hope for the best?

Thankfully, there’s a better option. Support Functions offers cloud-based Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Backup as a Service (BaaS) to ensure business continuity and data security in the event of an emergency. Our solutions are robust, affordable, and easy to use, allowing you to protect your business every bit as well as larger companies.

Our DRaaS and BaaS solutions are much more than just an “insurance policy” for your IT. At their core, they are an intelligent, cost-effective investment in risk mitigation. They ensure compliance with industry standards and governmental regulations. And beyond that, they offer peace of mind. With Support Functions, you know that you’ll be in good hands if you ever find yourself facing a worst-case scenario — because you’re working with an experienced, responsive partner who will have your back in a crisis.

Hacks, data breaches, and ransomware attacks are a serious and growing threat to our nation’s businesses.

It can be tempting to think of this as a problem that mostly affects larger companies, but that just isn’t true: a 2021 study conducted by Verizon found that 43% of all data breaches involve small and medium-sized businesses, and that a full 61% of all SMEs had reported at least one cyberattack in the previous year.

Here’s something even more concerning: it’s not just lone wolf hackers who are behind the recent surge in cyberattacks. Many of today’s cyber threat actors are both technologically sophisticated and extremely well-resourced. Organized criminal gangs — and even foreign intelligence agencies — are now targeting US businesses directly.

In short: SMEs are under attack … and it’s not even close to a fair fight.

Fortunately, Support Functions can help. We have the tools and the know-how to defend your business from the bad guys. Our cybersecurity engineers can help you harden your network and systems, and show you how to implement enterprise-grade antivirus solutions and advanced email security.

We can also work with you to take a more proactive approach to cybersecurity. We offer full security audits and assessments, comprehensive penetration testing, and training in cybersecurity best practices for your employees.

Growing SMEs tend to have a lot of moving parts. But their IT departments, although skilled and capable, are often small.

In practical terms, this means that your IT personnel are likely stretched thin already … and that they can’t reasonably be expected to become experts in every single piece of tech that your company wants to use.

If you’re not ready to hire additional full-time employees, Support Functions can give your existing IT group the support they need to succeed with complex projects or unfamiliar platforms.

We have Cisco trained and certified network engineers to assist you as you build, maintain, repair, upgrade, or extend your network infrastructure.

Our Microsoft certified experts will ensure that you make the most of your Microsoft technology investment.

If you have a particularly challenging virtualization project, our VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V certified experts can help.

Our team of talented IT pros has been doing this for more than 25 years, so we’re confident we can match you with the right tech specialist for just about any job!