With the proliferation of cloud based products available direct to SMEs across the UK, we are often asked what benefits there are to using a specialist IT company when the customer could go direct to the software supplier.

Here’s a summary of the key benefits we bring when helping you install and use commonly available products such as Office 365.

Firstly let’s just recap the benefits you get with any subscription to Office 365:

• Full office suite installed on up to 5 devices across both Mac and Windows. Includes desktops, laptops and mobile devices for each license you buy.
• Enterprise email server with 50GB storage per mailbox.
• 1TB storage per user using Microsoft’s “onedrive” cloud storage system.
• Skype for Business Application included
• Anti-spam and anti-virus included

Many people often buy these products as a Home version so are familiar with the basics. As a Tier 2 provider the first element we can offer you is product knowledge. Office 365 is a great tool but it doesn’t allow you to do everything. If you can’t configure it via the control panel, there is no flexibility in the system. This means it’s vital that before you commit to a large installation you have thoroughly reviewed your requirements with an IT professional such as IGC who can recommend the right product mix to achieve your goals.

We can also help setting up the system in a coordinated way, ensuring that your users have a consistent platform across all of your sites. And of course when something goes wrong, or you are looking for support, we are there at the end of the phone and will be familiar both with your company and systems, so can quickly assist in fixing the issue.

This support is particularly useful when applied to you whole IT system. Most clients will have a range of products at different points in their lifecycle and wont have the luxury of “brand new everything”. We can help you upgrade both hardware and software systems in a planned manner as your finances and user needs dictate.

If a Hosted Exchange service is added to the product mix, another level of knowledge will be required. We host many email exchanges for clients in UK based data centres that give you instant compliance with the UK Data Protection Act, something that may be harder to guarantee when using non UK based storage.

If you would like us to take a look at your current setup and advise how to upgrade and expand your system, please give us a call.