IT Project Management: 7 Ways it Helps Your Business

To keep up with the fast-paced global economy, your company has to regularly update its network infrastructure, software, equipment, and security. Take a good long look at your budget for these projects. Now take an honest look at your staff. What would the cost be if you had your current in-house IT staff complete these critical, strategic IT projects?

Experienced IT managers, CIOs, and CTOs understand that their in-house IT departments, which include talented professionals with well-rounded skill sets, don’t necessarily have the highly specialized skills they need to manage the demand of a multitude of strategic IT projects.

As a result, your IT department may spend more time than it would take a team of IT project management professionals, and you may spend more money on manpower. Sometimes it’s cheaper and more efficient to outsource strategic IT projects to a third party with a qualified project manager.

Compare your project list to the size of your IT team – which is larger?

Here are seven ways an IT project management service can significantly help your business.

1. Security

Cybersecurity is the most talked-about boardroom topic in any industry. Countless transactions occur online, which can put sensitive customer information at risk. Malware is also a substantial threat, bombarding your corporate inboxes and your website’s comment threads. While your IT department can protect against day-to-day risks, hiring a third party to perform an IT audit of your company’s network security can save your team time and give your company peace of mind.

2. Help Desk Operations

What if you have a small but dedicated help desk department? It’s likely your IT staff is quite busy running daily operations and isn’t available at all times to manage help desk operations, as well. You can delegate all of your help desk tasks to an external team, freeing up much-needed time and resources for your existing IT department.

3. Equipment Refreshes and Software Upgrades

New equipment and sweeping software upgrades are intense, time-consuming, and challenging for most small IT departments to complete on a deadline. Comprehensive equipment and software upgrades can absorb all of your IT team’s time and force them to shift priorities.  Further, if your IT team were to attempt a large-scale equipment refresh—say, an entire department or business unit—the time spent may be too much of an impact to your organization. An outside IT project management team can minimize the impact on your staff and your operations.

4. Office Relocations

Just like equipment changes and software updates, office relocations are significant undertakings. An outside organization can successfully transition your business equipment between locations in a shorter period of time than your in-house IT department could manage. Be sure to choose a partner who will disconnect, move, reconnect, and test all your equipment to get your team back up and running in their new location quickly and efficiently.

5. IT Compliance (Internal and External)

No one likes to think about compliance, but it’s nonetheless important. Externally, you want your business to abide by product licenses and prevent licensing violations and fines. Internally, you need to have a protocol to protect employee computers and networks from threats. Compliance is too important to trust to anyone but an expert, but often too timely to complete in-house.

6. Network Planning and Management

Network planning, from server design to maintenance, requires detail-oriented focus and collaboration. It’s essential to choose a dedicated team of IT professionals who have experience planning and managing a network. If not, the negative consequences could permanently impact your business. An outside resource can also help you to identify previously unknown gaps in your infrastructure, saving you time and a headache down the road.

7. Vendor Selection and Management

Can you stay objective when picking out the right tech products from the right vendors? Many IT managers, CIOs, and CTOs have some bias toward particular systems. This built-in preference often doesn’t allow them to be open to new cutting-edge products. A neutral third party that specializes in tech can provide objective advice about specific products and vendors. And once your vendors are chosen, why not employ someone to help you manage the minutia of all your contracts, including software updates, warranties, and other contractual requirements?

Weigh your options when it comes to seeking help on some of your most important IT projects and tasks.

Do you have projects like these on your business’s horizon? Rather than trying to manage each task in-house with limited resources and diffused attention, consider outsourcing your IT project management to a trusted group of innovative professionals.