According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms in the country. Small firms also account for forty-three percent of the technical workforce, and employ engineers, computer programmers, and scientists. About fifty-two percent of the small businesses are home-based. As per the US Census Bureau data for 2009, more than 119 million households in the US have computers, and 68.7 percent of them use the Internet. For most of the small business owners, use of computers and the Internet is essential to increase their productivity. From flower shops to bowling alleys, all small establishments have increasingly adopted information technology to smoothen their operations, save money, and increase their profitability. Firms use computers to manage their business through effective communication and efficient data management.
However, many of those firms suffer regular losses in productivity due to various software and hardware related problems that hamper their daily activities.The computer related issues that small businesses face are similar to what the big corporations have to also deal with. According to a Forrester Research projection, growth in IT spending is expected to increase to 8.4% in 2010. For 2010, about forty percent of businesses reported an increased spending of five percent or more on IT security. But only a small percentage of the small businesses in the US employ in-house technical professionals for computer repair for resolving hardware and software issues. There has been an increase outsourcing technical support requirements to companies such as iYogi, which provide remote support for computer repair.
For a small annual fee, iYogi offers unlimited remote technical support and computer repair services to their subscribers. iYogi technicians can be contacted at any hour of the day or night. By opting for remote tech support, small firms can save a lot of money. The cost advantage is indeed one of the major reasons why small firms in the US subscribe to remote technical support services.A subscriber of iYogi, when faced with any software or hardware problem, can call them on their toll free number. To carry out computer repair, iYogi technicians request for remote access of the problematic machine. Once the permission is granted and depending on the gravity of the problem, technicians can repair the computer within a few minutes. Small firms can also get other peripheral devices like printer, mobile, and digital camera issues resolved with the help of remote technical support. The future prospects of remote tech support service firms look bright as more and more small business owners feel the need to secure their IT interests in a cost-effective manner.