Tag: IT director

10 reasons why you should outsource your IT Support

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, technology plays a critical role in driving efficiency, productivity, and growth. However, managing an efficient and reliable IT infrastructure can be a complex and resource-intensive task. This is where outsourcing IT support can offer a strategic advantage to companies of all sizes and industries. By partnering with a specialised IT support provider, like ourselves here at The Unite Group. Businesses can tap into a wealth of expertise, experience, and resources that can help them overcome various pain points and achieve their technology goals.

In this blog, we cover 10 reasons why you should outsource your IT Support.

1. Lack of in-house expertise

If your company does not have the necessary skills or expertise in managing IT infrastructure and support, you should consider outsourcing these services to a specialised IT support provider. IT issues if not resolved quickly can be expensive for businesses. It could also damage your reputation it you are not able to deliver the high levels of service your customers would expect.

2. Cost considerations:

Maintaining an in-house IT support team can be expensive. Outsourcing IT support can be a cost-effective solution as it eliminates the need for hiring, training, and managing a dedicated IT department. Here at The Unite Group, we offer price-per-user IT Support. Meaning as long as the user is covered, we will support all their devices.

3. Scalability and flexibility

If your company experiences fluctuations in its IT support needs, you may find it challenging to scale your in-house team accordingly. Outsourcing provides the flexibility to easily adjust the level of support required based on the company’s evolving needs. We have a large helpdesk team meaning any issues will be dealt with often on the same day.

4. 24/7 support requirement

Does your businesses require round-the-clock IT support to ensure their systems are operational at all times? Outsourcing IT support provides access to 24/7 support services, which may be challenging to maintain with an in-house team.

5. Focus on core competencies

Outsourcing your IT support allows you to focus on your core competencies and strategic initiatives while leaving IT infrastructure management to external experts. Be assured your IT is in safe hands, leaving you time to focus on your business.

6. Access to advanced technology

As IT support providers, we have access to the latest technologies, tools, and industry best practices. By outsourcing, you can leverage these resources without having to invest in them separately.

7. Geographical reach

If your company operates in multiple locations across the UK, outsourcing your IT support can ensure consistent support across all locations, regardless of the region.

8. Compliance and security concerns

Alongside IT Support, we also offer managed backup services as well as Cyber Essentials certifications. Our IT engineers can work closely with our cyber security experts to ensure your IT infrastructure is compliant and protected.

9. Employee turnover and training

Recruiting and retaining skilled IT professionals can be challenging. By outsourcing IT support, companies can avoid the risks associated with employee turnover and the need for ongoing training and skill development. Our team here at The Unite Group is kept up-to-date with the latest training within the industry to ensure you can be confident in their capabilities.

10. Disaster recovery and business continuity

Managing your IT in-house can often mean services like backup management, disaster recovery planning, and business continuity strategies can be forgotten. This ensures that critical data and systems can be quickly restored in the event of an outage or disaster. Here at The Unite Group, we can fully manage your backups to ensure your data is safe, secure, and up to date if you choose to outsource your IT support.

From cost savings and scalability to accessing advanced technologies and round-the-clock support, outsourcing IT support allows companies to focus on their core competencies while leaving the management and maintenance of their IT infrastructure in capable hands. Ultimately, outsourcing IT support enables organisations to streamline operations, enhance security, improve user experience, and stay ahead in today’s highly competitive digital landscape.

Interested in our Managed IT services and want to outsource your IT Support? Click here to learn more or contact our team today on 0191 466 1050

June 15, 2023
A chat with Callum, our Operations Director

Callum, our Operations Director

Next up in our meet the team series we introduce Callum, our Operations Manager. We recently had a chat with him to find out a bit more about what he does within the Unite Group…

Growing up, what did you want to be?

Growing up, I always wanted to be an astronaut!

What is your role at The Unite Group and how did you end up where you are now?

My role here at The Unite Group is as the Operations Director. This role involves managing the help desk, coordinating the projects, employee well-being and technical support on all things telecommunications related. Being at Unite with Paul from the start, I came into this role as the company grew and we gained 2 more directors. This felt the best suitable role for me to really utilise my skillset and experience (I’ve been in this industry for 20 years!)

What does a typical day look like at The Unite Group?

My typical day consists of lots of coffee, emails, and coordinating the engineers and helpdesk guys as well as planning projects. So my days are often very busy!

What is your most and least favourite part of the job?

My favourite part of the job has got to be seeing projects complete smoothly, it’s always great to see when we are able to help our customers seamlessly. Also seeing customer issues being fixed and getting great feedback about our team is always great!

My least favourite part of the job however has to be delays due to unforeseen issues and the lack of available hardware to complete work as it is still an ongoing problem. These issues take matters out of our hands and can make it a bit harder for us to fix our customer’s problems. However, here at The Unite Group, we will always do our utmost to ensure our customers are back online and working without any problems as soon as possible.

What is your greatest achievement?

My greatest achievement has got to be landing a plane for the first time when learning to fly. I was in the RAF from 1989 through to 2000, I wasn’t a pilot in the RAF I just fancied giving it a go, great fun taking off after getting the go-ahead from the tower, not much happens in the sky but landing is scary and a massive relief once you are down.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

Never give up and stay positive.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

In 10 years time I’d like to hope I’ll be in the same role but with a reduced working week and more free time to enjoy life and chill out more, might even take up golf!

How do you unwind outside of work?

Outside of work, I enjoy socialising with my friends. You can also often find me playing random sports (badly) and listening to music. I love to attend concerts when I can. Currently, outside of work, you will find me training for the Great North Run. I am taking part alongside Paul & Ben raising money for a fantastic local charity Grace House! This will be my 10th time doing the run and I hope to beat Ben (A chat with Ben, one of our Senior Service Engineers) again this year 😊. If you’d like to sponsor us, it would definitely help us make it round, please find our fundraising page here. Cycling the Great North Bike Ride again and also cycling to Edinburgh later this year following the coast and castle and pubs route.

If you want to see how Callum and The Unite Group can help you with your business technology needs, contact us on, 0191 466 1050.

August 5, 2022
July 2022 – Newsletter

Here at The Unite Group we are always looking for ways to keep our customers up to date with the latest deals, tips, industry news as well as what our fantastic team are getting up to! We are proud to produce a monthly newsletter to do this.

In this newsletter: we share the charity golf days we are participating in, celebrate 1 year of our newsletter, welcome 2 new team members to the Social+ team, showcase one of our fantastic customers Tumble Activity Centre, introduce the next Network+ event, talk all things cyber essentials & are looking for an individual to join our team!

To read The Unite Group’s July Monthly Newsletter, click on the image below!

To be added to our mailing list drop us an email, info@theunitegroup.co.uk or to speak to our friendly team call us on, 0191 466 1050

July 2022 Newsletter

July 26, 2022
Cybersecurity – 5 reasons why your business should outsource it

Cybersecurity with The Unite Group

Maintaining a strong cybersecurity posture is a significant challenge for most businesses. With complex cyberattacks becoming more common, all businesses are at risk of falling victim. To reduce this risk, businesses typically implement new technologies that focus on prevention, detection, and remediation.

However, this technology alone will not prevent a cyberattack, it will need to be supported by skilled security professionals. Many businesses choose to outsource this to a trusted third party to ensure their business is as safe as possible. In this article, we will discuss 5 reasons why businesses should outsource their cybersecurity.

Access to experienced professionals

Many businesses rely on their in-house IT teams to manage their infrastructure, as well as their cybersecurity. Depending on the size of the company, and the workload of the IT department, this can be an overwhelming task. This can then result in a poor security posture and an overworked team. This is made harder as there is a cybersecurity skills shortage. This makes it difficult for businesses to employ experienced cybersecurity professionals.

When a business outsources their cybersecurity to a trusted third party, they gain access to a team of cybersecurity specialists. Their experience ensures they will be able accurately find and plug gaps within a business’s security posture. And most importantly they are aware of the current cyberthreats, and the best way to avoid them.

Reduce costs

For businesses of all sizes, employing a new security professional or training an existing employee can be extremely expensive. For smaller businesses, it can sometimes be difficult to justify having an employee that is dedicated solely to security. In addition to the cost of employing or training someone, a business will still need to pay for cybersecurity technologies.

Whereas if a business outsources its cybersecurity, the cost is typically a fixed amount per month. This includes the technology, as well as access to the team of cybersecurity professionals. Whenever a business is considering the cost of outsourcing security, they should also consider the average cost of a cyberattack. Looking at the cost to the business if this was to happen can help estimate the return on investment.

Decrease workload for in-house IT teams

If your business has an in-house IT department, it is highly likely they already have a full workload maintaining the IT and assisting with support requests. This often leaves them with insufficient time to work on the perfect security solution, or threat monitoring.

With outsourced cybersecurity, the third-party provider is responsible for the planning, implementation and monitoring of a cybersecurity solution. This gives in-house IT departments more time to spend providing IT systems that help grow the business and provide better experiences for other employees and customers.

Improved incident response time

After a business falls victim to an attack, it is imperative that they respond quickly to reduce further damage and limit downtime. If a cybercriminal enters a network or system during the weekend, an in-house IT team may not notice until Monday morning. This will give the threat actor enough time to move laterally across a network and inflict even more damage. For example, it only takes 18 minutes for Russian nation-state hackers to move across a network.

Many cybersecurity providers offer 24/7 protection, detection and remediation to ensure that regardless of when an attack occurs, there is someone ready to swiftly take action. This is also a more cost-effective method of around the clock protection, as it would be extremely expensive to hire an internal team to work throughout the nights and on weekends.

Access to advanced technologies

There are many cybersecurity technologies out there which are designed to fulfil specific roles, including endpoint protection, email protection, autonomous detection, and many more. For an in-house IT department, they will not have experience with all of these advanced technologies, and it would be too costly and time-consuming to provide training for all solutions.

If a business chooses to outsources their cybersecurity requirements, they will be protected by a team of professionals that have experience in the cybersecurity technology. As this team live and breathes cybersecurity, they will also be able to accurately provide insights into which technologies are worth a business investing in.

Looking to outsource your cybersecurity?

In 2022, all businesses need to invest in cybersecurity, before it is too late. There are many advanced threats out there that most in-house IT departments are not prepared or able to defend against. For this reason, it is logical for businesses to outsource their cybersecurity to a trusted third-party provider. To find out more about how we can keep your business safe, contact us today.

July 21, 2022
A chat with Mike, our Technical Director

Mike, our Technical Director

Following on in our meet the team series, we introduce you to Mike. Mike is our Technical Director here at The Unite Group and mostly focuses on the IT side of the business.

We recently had a chat with him to find out a bit more about him and his role…

Growing up, what did you want to be?

I never really knew what field I wanted to go into when I was younger. However I did always enjoy engineering and problem solving. So naturally I ended up doing tech & sciences which led me into discovering a passion for IT and business. I was told by a careers advisor at school that as I was an early riser and liked the outdoors I should be a farmer, so I’m glad I didn’t follow that advice!

What is your role at The Unite Group and how did you end up where you are now?

I am one of the directors within the group and oversee most technical IT aspects of the company and IT projects. I have worked in IT for 23 years. In roles ranging from IT helpdesk, support desk team leader, IT consultant and GIS analyst. After starting SMT Technologies with Dean we later merged our business with Unite Communications. This formed The Unite Group, combining the IT expertise of SMT Tech with the comms expertise of Unite landing me here amongst a great team.

What does a typical day look like at The Unite Group?

As we service a whole host of companies for comms, IT and social media we don’t really have a typical day in the office. I can end up working on any project if the team escalates issues to me. This is one of the exciting parts of the job! Although to summarise a standard week I will mostly be working on planning projects and meeting with clients to discuss the IT options available to them, working with the team on any escalations and trying to fit in work on the groups IT and systems also.

What is your most and least favourite part of the job?

I most enjoy planning and deploying new solutions and systems to overcome issues for clients and our own business, it’s like solving a puzzle!

As for the least favourite part I would have to say, and Lorraine would probably agree, I don’t like completing the finance paperwork we need to keep on top of so I often cause her a headache chasing me to complete or submit information she needs.

What is your greatest achievement?

I would have to say it would be the hard work put into our company which saw us grow from a small 2 man firm into the group we are today. It’s a great source of pride and we really have a great team throughout which delivers a great atmosphere!

What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

Simply try your best and don’t give up, something instilled firmly by my family as a youth and as a married adult and its very much the theme of my favorite poem, IF, with the line “Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools very much instilling the fact that at times you will hit hardship and see a dream dashed but if you just keep on you can make something better. I think most people can relate closely to that with all the tragedies and hardships recently.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years’ time?

We have some exciting plans to scale and grow the group and the offerings we deliver so I very much see myself still here, maybe with a 4 day week if I’m lucky! I don’t like having nothing to do so the hustle and bustle of the business is great.

How do you unwind outside of work?

I enjoy zoning out to music. I listen to anything from classical through to country and heavy rock & metal depending on my mood. My current favourite playlist is leaning very heavily to Pink Floyd and Creedence Clearwater Revival for a bit of a retro kick. I also enjoy cooking (when it’s not a rush just to get dinner out) and we as a family enjoy traveling when possible.

To arrange a chat with Mike, or if you want to see how The Unite Group can help you with your business technology needs, contact us on 0191 466 1050.

June 30, 2022