- To improve the efficiency and dependability of you IT operations.
- Enhanced security and compliance.
- A proactive approach to maintenance.
- Cost effectiveness and a good return on investment.
- Have greater access to new technologies.
- Free up IT staff or reduce IT staffing costs.
- Shifting capital expenses to operating expenses.
- Predictable pricing and manageable costs.
To take a closer look at some of the more pressing reasons why managed services are becoming the obvious choice for small to medium sized business owners.
1. More Efficient and Reliable IT Operations
This is one of the main reasons that companies decide that managed services are the right choice for them. Often, the businesses suffer from overburdened IT staff, or lack employees that have the knowledge and skills to handle certain tasks and successfully handle the entire network on their own.
In these situations, it is hard to deny the value of working with an outside IT service provider. Most businesses using managed services describe their partnership with their provider as a collaborative arrangement with their internal IT department, leading one to believe that certain aspects of IT management fall into the MSP bucket while others are preferably handled in-house. The driving force for these business owners is to improve and enhance the capabilities of the in-house IT team, not replace them altogether. Outsourcing IT not only ensures an extra team of IT experts to help resolve any issues or concerns but to be able to benefit from having access to the latest and greatest technology and innovative business grade solutions that will assist in maximizing uptime and profitability. These technologies include such things as:
- Remote monitoring and management (RMM)
- Backup and disaster recovery (BDR)
- Cloud computing
By investing in these tools, the entire IT infrastructure becomes more reliable and dependable, labor constraints are overcome, and internal IT departments are able to keep in control of the situation.
2. Enhanced Security and Compliance
There are so many variations of technology that store and transmit data nowadays, including tablets, operating systems, servers, smartphones, laptops and more. Because data is stored and transmitted on these devices it means security is critical. Many business owners live in fear that they will fall victim to a security breach. MSPs will keep you inform of the risks and explaining how data and compliance practices could be compromised when events arise.
MSPs will address concerns about compliance, especially in industries such as health, retail, financial and legal, where compliance is a major concern. It is important to work with a provider that is HIPAA compliant and in addition, can implement other ways to supplement additional managed security protocol, policies, and procedures.
3. A Proactive Approach to Maintenance
This is a major and important benefit to managed IT services. Most business owners have little to no time to spend thinking about their IT infrastructure, worrying about things such as the dependability and speed of the network connections, and other concerns. By working with an MSP, they are afforded the luxury of all-day, every-day, around-the-clock coverage.
Security solutions and services such as RMM are always working to detect potential threats, vulnerabilities, or potential disturbances. When you have fully managed IT support, bugs and issues can most often be troubleshot and remediated before they are ever a concern. Most business owners are happy to pay for such a service, as CEOs and others have no time to be verifying that backups are done properly. When business work with the right MSP they can take advantage of proactive business continuity solutions, such as BDR, by combining RMM intelligence with regular and encrypted backups, cloud computing, and virtualization.
4. Free Up Internal IT Staff To Work On Strategic Projects
When a business chooses a managed-service provider a major advantage they often don’t think of, is that any internal IT staff is free to focus their energy and talents on projects and tasks they are better suited to handle.
This increases productivity and allows strategic planning to get the time and attention it deserves.
This maximizes the business’s IT budget and the business can get the most out of their investment.
Managed services enable in-house staff to spend their working hours on what they are best at, with the MSP filling in the gaps and taking the pressure off and providing specialized services where they are needed most. Things like migrating over to Microsoft Office 365 when it can be expertly handled by an MSP instead, and a technician can commit their time to something they excel at.
5. Cost Effectiveness and Return on Investment
The cost savings associated with managed services is considerable, making it another reason that using an MSP is desirable. This fact has an incredible amount of business value, but many business owners are unaware of just how significant this is. MSPs help control outgoing expenses and increase ROI. An IT budget consists of many items, including:
- hardware costs
- software and network infrastructure
- maintenance costs
- IT labor
Business owners understand that managed services can benefit them financially, especially where the aforementioned maintenance costs are concerned. Using outdated software can have detrimental effects on ROI, and this is avoided with MSPs. In addition, it provides the flexibility and scalability needed to grow or scale back in a way not possible with internal IT teams.
The managed service model allows owners to easily predict their IT expenses on a monthly basis and can make it easier to plan and budget for larger IT projects and improvements.