Tip of the Week: How to Find the Right Outsourced IT Company for Your Business

As your company expands, you’re beginning to realize that one IT person isn’t enough to handle all of your technical needs. You feel like you need more hands on deck, but your budget won’t allow for it. You decide that your best option is to hire slowly and steadily, interviewing externally for the most qualified individuals. But, how can you be sure that they meet the needs of your company?

If you outsource your IT needs, you get the benefit of an entire IT staff from a predictable, easy-to-budget price. This makes it far more cost-efficient than hiring new staff members. However, not all IT agencies are equal, and some are far more professional than others. How can you tell the champs from the chumps? A simple business interview can sometimes be all you need to figure it out.

Major IT Trends
A safe question to ask is if they are following the major trends of the IT industry. If the company is paying attention to important discoveries, such as major bugs in software or patch releases, that means that they are passionate about what they do, and that passion can benefit your company greatly.

At Directive, we follow many different news outlets and are always aware of recent happenings in the tech community. We know that a good IT staff needs to pay attention to trends, and we adapt our strategies accordingly.

Difficult Tasks? No Problem
Sometimes your staff might get in over their heads and have trouble operating their technology. Nobody understands how to do everything, and the same goes for your prospective outsourced IT company. A good question to ask them at an interview is how they handle unclear circumstances. Their methods of gaining necessary information or clarifying the situation can tell a lot about the service that a company can provide.

Directive works with you and your local IT staff to ensure that there is as little confusion as possible between your party and ours. If something is unclear, we’ll work with you to achieve a level of clarity that is necessary to do a job the way that it needs to be done - right.

Hypothetical Questions
Give your outsourcing candidates difficult decisions to make and watch them squirm. If they struggle to answer and react, they probably aren’t worth hiring. Often times, the answer isn’t as important as the thought process they put into it. You get to see their information-gathering skills on the fly, and analyze the way that they resolve problems.

Directive will find the best way to resolve your problems, both timely and economically. We know that some problems can’t be fixed as quickly as you would like, but we put our all into finding the best solution as quickly as possible.

Finding an IT provider that suits your needs doesn’t always have to be challenging. Call Directive at 607.433.2200 today and give us an interview. You can see for yourself just how qualified we are to handle all of your IT needs.