When technology is not the core capability of your business, hiring an IT consulting firm makes sense. Outside resources can provide more value than trying to use inside staff, especially for specific compliance or security initiatives.
Businesses that can leverage the best technologies for their business (and not necessarily the most expensive) gain a competitive advantage. IT consulting firms enable their clients to invest in the most suitable hardware and software for that business.
What is IT consulting?
IT consulting refers to the services that an individual or company provides to you about the use of technology. An IT consulting firm enables you to leverage the right technology for your business without overspending on technology you don't need.
Making Technology Work for Your Business
As a business owner, you want to invest in information technology that will help you to achieve your business goals. With every technology decision, there may be dozens of options to choose from. You want to make sure you select those technology solutions that will most benefit your business.
IT infrastructure consulting is a way of making sure that the technology you invest in today will best contribute to meeting future goals of the company.
An IT consulting company will provide hard answers to these types of questions, backed by metrics:
- How efficient is your IT infrastructure?
- How good is the performance of the network?
- What’s your network’s capacity?
- If you do invest in new technology, what results can you expect? What will be the impact to your operations?
You (or your staff) may not have the time/resources to keep up with the latest technologies. An IT consulting company can advise you on technology best practices as well as in which new technologies you should invest.
Maximizing Value
Too often, companies will buy the latest software tool to create the best/most secure/fastest computer network. When what they really need is an evaluation of their entire IT infrastructure by an outside party. The evaluation can show you where you need to make process changes to achieve desired outcomes.
You may not need the most feature-rich software platform, but the one that is right for your business. Or you might need to modify the configuration of existing equipment. Avoid overspending for technology you don’t need.
ASK YOURSELF... Are you getting good value for your technology investment?
IT consulting can answer that question and pinpoint where changes should be made.
A technology consulting company can evaluate your existing IT infrastructure and make recommendations to improve performance, increase capacity, and improve security. It may be time for a technology refresh of your IT environment.
Your IT environment is always growing and changing. Chances are, if you had it to do all over again, knowing what you know now, you might do things differently. An IT network re-design is the opportunity to do just that.
What services do IT consulting companies provide?
Typical services provided by IT consulting companies include:
Virtual CIO Services – expert IT strategy that will maximize the benefits you derive from technology and the return on your technology investment
Virtual CISO Services – cybersecurity minded perspective across your company's IT infrastructure to ensure security is woven through the corporate environment and that security risks are limited
IT Security Assessments – appraisal of the overall health of the IT ecosystem, network, virtualization, and security
Compliance Assessments – evaluation of your compliance against specific mandates such as those for HIPAA, NIST, PCI DSS, etc.
Cloud Consulting and Migration Strategy – determination of which applications in use at your company are good candidates to move to the cloud, and which are not
Network Design – modern technology infrastructure plans that follow best practices in networks and security
IT Staffing – supplemental technical staff that have been qualified to meet your needs with relevant industry experience
Nationwide Technical Services – installation and implementation services delivered to your sites across the country with 24x7x365 technical support
How does IT consulting work?
You can engage the services of an IT consulting firm for project-based work or to supply on-site staff. The additional staff can be provided on either a permanent or temporary basis.
PROJECT WORK
An IT consulting company can provide the deep technical expertise needed to undertake mission-critical projects such as installing new equipment, migrating to Microsoft Office 365, moving your data center, etc.
Cloud consulting & migration:
- Cloud migration readiness assessments
- Cloud migration strategy and tactics
- Application discovery and dependency analysis
- Right-sized resource allocation
- Total cost of ownership projection
- Multi-cloud cost comparisons between AWS, Azure, and others
- Pricing plan optimization
Network design:
- Network assessments
- Network architecture
- Network strategy and planning
- Network integration and deployment
- Network optimization
- Network support
- Storage and data management design
- Virtualization design
- End user computing
Nationwide technical services:
- Hardware installation, maintenance, and support services
- Server consolidation and migration services
- Networking infrastructure design and support
- Enterprise networked storage
- Data center design
- Security services and consulting
- IT consolidation
- Secure remote office and virtual networking
- Business continuance and disaster recovery
- IT help desk
- Converging technologies
IT assessment services:
- Wired and wireless networking
- Security
- Virtualization
- NIST, PCI, and HIPAA compliance
Compliance projects are especially good candidates for using a technology consulting company because they offer an unbiased, outside perspective.
STAFFING SERVICES
An IT consulting company can serve as your IT department (or to supplement your IT staff) on a more permanent, ongoing basis. The outside firm can provide IT strategy expertise or day to day IT support.
Virtual CIO services:
- Strategic and tactical advisory service
- IT budgeting and cost control
- IT infrastructure planning
- IT migration projects, design, and implementation
- IT service management (ITSM)
- IT policies and governance
Virtual CISO services:
- Strategic and tactical cybersecurity advisory service
- IT security auditing
- Security program development
- IT security policies alignment with business strategy
- Compliance and risk management
- Personnel security and training
- Security response planning
How much does IT consulting cost?
Well-defined projects with specific start and end dates are generally fixed fee and based on that project. This includes advisory services such as for security and compliance assessments.
Supplemental staffing engagements are generally priced per day or per hour with outside extents defined in the contract.
How do you know if IT consulting is right for you?
If you’re concerned about your company’s cybersecurity, but not sure what to do about it, IT consulting can help. Maybe you’ve implemented several security tools but you’re not sure how well you are protected. An IT consulting firm can provide you a well-defined plan of action steps.
Another aspect to look at is costs. If IT costs are always rising, an evaluation by an outside firm can provide you with unbiased insight. Uncover what you are getting for the money and where you could make changes to realize cost savings.
Beware of Common Misconceptions About IT Consulting
When you think of companies offering consulting services, you might think only of large, global professional services companies serving enterprise customers.
But managed IT services companies provide IT consulting services to small- and mid-sized companies. A managed service provider (MSP) has the deep technical experience you need, which translates into practical advice for you at a price you can afford.
Rely on Corserva for IT Consulting Services
Since 1985, Corserva has been a trusted technology partner to Fortune 1000 companies as well as SMBs. We provide IT consulting services such as virtual CIO, virtual CISO, security/compliance assessments, as well as other project-based work. We are vendor agnostic and we can customize a package for you that provides what you need at a price that fits your budget.
Our managed IT services are supported from our own US based technical service centers located in Trumbull, Connecticut and Orlando, Florida. Within our facilities, we staff our own network operations centers and data centers. We provide 24x7x365 support for our clients nationwide.
Request a quote today.
