What are IT Services?

In today’s digital business environment, IT services play an essential role in driving day-to-day business operations. IT services for businesses allow organizations to use information technology without managing complexities such as security, scalability, maintenance, and resilience.

So, what IT services are.

IT services refer to providing technology-oriented solutions to businesses according to their needs. It is the application of technical expertise that enables businesses to develop, manage, optimize, and maintain business processes. 

High-quality IT services can take care of routine IT maintenance and help you focus on significant tasks that bring value to the business. Depending on the business type of an organization, the IT services can either consist of:

  • Internal/in-house IT team
  • External IT team—infrastructure outsourcing, business process outsourcing (BPO), applications outsourcing (AO), and so on.

What Are the Examples of IT Services?

  • Applications: It includes customer relationship management, chatbots, automated service requests, and more.
  • Data visualization, analysis, and processing services: It allows businesses to visualize data and find meaning in data with the help of cloud computing platforms.
  • Business processes services: It allows you to reshape business processes that help in improving cost-effectiveness and productivity, avoiding mistakes and unnecessary delays, and more.
  • End-user devices support: It helps businesses to manage electronic devices in an organization.
  • Information security: It monitors potential digital threats and automatically fixes vulnerabilities.

The Types of IT Services

 Here are the 10 most popular IT services to consider for your business.

Managed IT Services

IT services provided by a 3rd-party contractor are known as managed IT services. These encompass a variety of specifics and allow businesses to service the organization’s network on an ongoing basis.

Managed IT services can include:

  • Systems management
  • Backup and recovery management
  • Monitoring and maintenance of equipment
  • Remote management of servers
  • Communication management
  • Datacenter management
  • Support for private and public clouds 
  • Network monitoring

and various other services.

Backup and Disaster Recovery IT Services

In today’s digital world, your data is the most valuable asset of your business. Backup and disaster recovery IT services act safeguard your vital data in the event of:

  • Ransomware attack
  • Hardware failure
  • Natural disasters
  • Security breach
  • Human error 

and more.

It involves establishing a set of policies and procedures that are frequently tested and verified to assure business continuity.

Backup and disaster recovery IT services can include:

  • Planning
  • Quick recovery 
  • Testing
  • Storage
  • Monitoring
  • Restoration assistance
  • Failover 
  • Managed backup solution 
  • Reporting 

and more.

On-Demand IT Services

On-demand IT services are one of the most popular types of IT services that are the alternative to managed IT services. It allows organizations to pay for individual services when needed instead of paying a regular payment to their service providers.

It is a great option for small businesses with limited budgets that would prefer to avoid long-term IT services contracts.

On-demand IT services can include:

  • Cloud computing
  • Software upgrades
  • Hardware and software maintenance and more.

Network Cybersecurity IT Services

With the rise of cyber threats, network cybersecurity is a major concern for all businesses. Network cybersecurity is the practice of protecting servers, electronic systems, mobile devices, networks, and data from various malicious attacks.

Network cybersecurity IT services can include:

  • Multi-factor authentication
  • Consistent patching
  • Security measures to prevent unauthorized logins
  • Essential protection for your servers—anti-virus and anti-spam software
  • Event and firewall monitoring/management and more.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a type of IT service that is usually provided over a dedicated cloud network. It includes providing custom computing service, based on your needs, that is delivered to you over the cloud. The computing services includes databases, storage, servers, software, analytics, networking, and intelligence.

Cloud computing can include:

  • Broad network access 
  • Rapid elasticity
  • Resource pooling 
  • Private servers 
  • Cloud storage
  • Databases monitoring
  • Networking

and more.

Data Storage

As its name suggests, data storage is a type of IT services that help store the data of organizations. It could be an on-premises or cloud platform storage option depending on your system backups. It also offers additional storage, preventing users from keeping all their data on their main devices.

Data storage services can include:

  • Cloud-based and on-site backups to redundant facilities
  • Multi-year retention options
  • Data encryption
  • Full system snapshots of physical and virtual servers and more.

IT Consulting Services

Whether you plan on opening new offices, expanding your team, or planning on trying something different, IT consulting plays a major role. IT consulting services is a type of IT services that help you plan your future.

IT consulting services are advisory services that help organizations assess multiple technology strategies and help align their existing technology strategies.

IT consulting services can include:

  • Regular technology planning
  • Technical design
  • Best-practice guidance
  • Planned upgrades
  • IT budgeting
  • Access to IT design architects and more.

Hardware Support Services

There are some types of IT services that are more popular as on-demand outsource services. Hardware support generally falls under this category. It helps you manage and support your hardware including:

  • Desktops
  • Laptops
  • Routers 
  • Modems 
  • Motherboards  
  • Graphics cards and more.

Hardware support services can include:

  • Technology upgrades
  • End-of-lifecycle support
  • Sunsetting old tech
  • Application support
  • Fixing broken equipment
  • Equipment refreshes and more.

Software Support

Software support services deliver technical support for help and advice to registered users on specific software products. It is usually available 24/7, however, the response time can vary depending on the severity of the problem.

Software support can include:

  • Installation assistance
  • New software rollouts
  • Remote troubleshooting
  • Basic usability assistance.
  • Live chat support
  • Walk-in services
  • Security patches
  • Latest updates and upgrades
  • Device management
  • End-of-lifecycle support
  • VoIP management and more.

IT Help Desk Services

IT help desk services are a one-stop point of contact for any organization that provides support management services via phone, email, or chat. These types of IT services offer fast technical support for some basic, minor IT problems such as:

  • File restores
  • Password resets
  • Troubleshooting
  • Configuration-related tasks and more.

IT help desk services can include:

  • 24/7 fast support
  • Escalation process
  • Change management
  • Release management
  • Desktop/laptop management
  • Dedicated wheelhouse of services and more.

What are IT Procurement Services?

IT procurement services are a sequence of procedures and activities essential in developing IT products and services. It involves both administrative and strategic responsibilities.

Its practices range from fine-grained to ad-hoc and highly strategic. Generally, the IT procurement function involves a series of processes that usually focus on:

  • Recognizing business IT needs
  • Creation and management of requests for quotations
  • Choosing the suitable IT solutions
  • Requests for proposals 
  • Executing the purchases
  • Requests for information 
  • Managing supplier relationships and more.

Why Do You Need IT Procurement Services?

Procuring IT services is more than just buying IT services and products. It serves an important role in the completion of operational and strategic goals for organizations. It gives businesses a greater control and visibility to continuously monitor their progress to identify and improve any inefficiencies.

It includes a wide range of day to day activities such as:

  • Market research
  • Sourcing
  • Negotiation
  • Establishing terms and conditions for services
  • Making purchases
  • Tracking
  • Resolving invoice discrepancies
  • Maintaining records and more.

What are IT Managed Services?

Managed IT services are specially designed to maintain the routine operations of your specialized applications. These services can:

  • Allow in-house IT to concentrate on other strategic IT programs
  • Provide more capability to the end-users or your company
  • Free your in-house team to focus on the core competencies of your business and more.

Types of IT Managed Services

There are three types of  IT managed services such as:

Low-Level Managed IT Services

Low-level managed IT services are the most basic level that usually consists of the installation of software and integration of your existing infrastructure with new software or systems.

Your service provider will inform you of the signs of security risks. However, these will take no action to resolve such issues.

Mid-Level Managed IT Services

Mid-level managed IT services are more substantial than low-level. Unlike the low level, your provider will not only help you identify the potential risks but also take suitable actions to resolve such issues. 

This type of service offers scalability planning that can help you adapt to the change in services you’ll need as your business grows.

High-Level Managed IT Services

Besides the above-mentioned services, high-level managed IT services offer the following services such as:

  • Data analytics
  • Network support
  • Access to a mobile networking system
  • In-depth IT planning
  • Software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions and more.

Virtual CTO Services

Virtual CTO, also known as virtual  Chief Technology Officer, is a board-level position accountable for all technology-related decisions such as :

  • Creating front-end redesign
  • Providing an overall vision or strategy
  • Purchasing and implementing new software
  • Supervising all the current technologies and bringing about relevant policies

Technical Leadership CTO

A technical leadership CTO has a strong background in technical aspects and is expected to shape technological strategies and manage the development process. They are responsible for identifying the poor architecture that is slowing the team down. Their CTO services include:

  • Software architecture design
  • Software development
  • Programming
  • Cloud-based infrastructure configuration and more.

They are expected to shape technological strategies and oversee the development process.

Operational Management CTO

An operational management CTO facilitates the entire non-technical working process within a company by creating a strategic plan specially tailored to the culture of the company. They maintain the non-technical critical aspects of a company such as:

  • Mentoring
  • Financing
  • Project management and more.

Cybersecurity Solution

Cybersecurity solutions refer to the technological protection of a company against cyberattacks, data breaches, unauthorized use of electronic data, and various other digital threats such as:

  • Malware: It is one of the biggest external threats in the digital world that most businesses are facing today. It is a program that compromises the data’s confidentiality, integrity, or availability.
  • Phishing: It is generally used by cybercriminals to obtain confidential data by pretending to be a representative of a legitimate business.
  • Ransomware: It generally uses advanced encryption to limit access to your own system that then ransom money in order to decrypt the system.
  • DDoS Attacks: Also known as Distributed denial of service, these threats result in slow website response time.

Cybersecurity solutions target these above-mentioned threats along with various others through a comprehensive array of security measures. These are specially designed to secure your network and protect your data. These solutions include:

  • Data encryption: It ensures that your data is safe, as the hackers wouldn’t be able to decrypt it.
  • Access and identity management: It ensures that data is accessed by only authorized persons.
  • Firewall services: It protects against potential malicious attacks and untrusted networks. 
  • Data loss prevention: It ensures that your data is accessible and available at all times.

Anti-virus software: It helps you to scan your system for any kind of threats and blocks identifying programs such as viruses from accessing your system.

Types of Cybersecurity Solutions

There are three main types of cybersecurity solutions that give businesses ranging from small and large the freedom to implement IT security.

In-house cybersecurity

This helps you take control of your own cybersecurity which is usually practiced by large organizations.

Outsourcing cybersecurity

This is a practical solution for businesses with a low budget to hire an in-house cybersecurity team.

IT security as a solution

It is also an outsourced approach that you can hire on a subscription basis.

What Are Network Services?

IT network service is a low- or high-level application that facilitates a network operation. It typically runs on the server based on network protocols running at the application layer in the  OSI model of the network. The two most popular types of network services are LAN (Local area network) and WAN (Wide area network). It usually includes:

  • IP addressing
  • Primary domain email service
  • Dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP
  • Domain name system (DNS)
  • Voice over internet protocol (VoIP)
  • Web content filtering
  • Internet access
  • VPN termination
  • Intrusion prevention systems (IPS)
  • Security products such as firewalls and the necessary tools to support these services.

The servers are usually kept in a specially designed temperature-controlled room that is usually physically located in an isolated space. Network access is provided via cables to transmit data packages within the required network. These network cables also provide uninterrupted access to the Internet, after being routed through a network switch to the central server.

What Is Technical Support?

Technical support refers to a wide range of services provided by a provider for registered businesses to help and advise them about their products.

It monitors all your hardware, software, and various electronic, mechanical, and electromechanical systems. It provides you with the technical expertise to tailor your system to your specific needs and helps you keep your systems running smoothly.

The responsibilities of tech support workers include: 

  • Resolving network issues
  • Installing software
  • Configuring hardware
  • Diagnosing and repairing faults
  • Troubleshooting technical issues.
  • Speaking to customers to identify and resolve the technical issue and more.