The most recent census tells us that 85% of businesses rely on technology to stay operational. Are you one of them?
If so, you know that all the benefits of tech come with a few drawbacks. These include system glitches, downtime, and user errors, too.
An in-house IT department can help ensure your business stays productive regardless of these upheavals, but managed services do it even better. Here’s why.
What Is a Managed Service for IT?
It takes knowledge, maintenance, and expertise to keep your IT systems running at their best. That’s why every business needs access to IT professionals around the clock.
Unless you can fulfill this role yourself or can afford to hire a team of experts with comprehensive skills, you need to find someone who can.
Managed tech services offer this type of always-on assistance whenever you need it.
These services give you access to a team of qualified and experienced IT professionals on a contract or subscription basis. You can use this type of service to assist your own IT department with their workload or to replace a faltering in-house team.
They’re also a good source of skills that your own team might lack, especially if you can’t afford to hire yet another specialist to serve your IT needs.
Some of the business tools offered by these IT support companies include:
- Management and monitoring of IT infrastructure and hardware
- Security services
- Configuration, management, and monitoring of cloud services
- Communications support
- aws management service
In most cases, you can enjoy the benefits of all these services or pay for only the ones you need.
The Benefits of Managed Services
Globally, the managed services market is worth $25 billion, and it’s growing rapidly. That’s because ever-increasing numbers of businesses are embracing the benefits of these services.
This is what the top managed services have to offer.
Staying in Line With Changing Times
The first business computer ever designed came about in 1951. It weighed over 16,000 lbs. and could calculate 1,000 operations per second. Nowadays, we can hold a device capable of managing 3 billion processes per second in the palm of our hands.
This illustrates how fast technology evolved once it became mainstream, and it’s safe to say these advances have only picked up steam in modern times. If you want your business to get the best benefit from these innovations, you need to stay up to date with this rapid pace.
There’s a good chance you feel totally overwhelmed by the prospect of researching all your options in this regard, unless you have the time and know-how to pull this off, you need to hire someone who does.
Managed IT services make it their business to know about all the latest technology, apps, and software to keep your business on track and thriving. What’s more, they’ll ensure your existing systems stay updated and secure according to the latest available versions.
They ensure their personnel stay trained and informed about all the latest software improvements and offers, to ensure you stay ahead in today’s competitive business environment.
Outsourcing Services Saves Money
Hiring an in-house team is an expensive undertaking. Qualified and experienced IT managers can command salaries over $100,000 per annum.
On top of that, you’ll need to pay for their benefits, onboarding costs, and ongoing training. What’s more, you’ll need more than one IT professional to service all your business needs.
Unless you’re an IT expert yourself, it’s difficult to know if you’re hiring someone with the right skills in the first place, or if they’re qualified for the job. This could mean you’re in for the expenses associated with reassigning or replacing them down the line.
When you engage the services of outsourced IT, you gain access to all the tech services you need at a fraction of the cost.
There’s a high demand for IT personnel, so there’s always the risk that members of your carefully selected and experienced team will receive a better offer from someone else.
When that happens, you’ll need to go to all the expense and effort of replacing them. When your designated IT person from an external vendor leaves, there’s always a replacement to hand.
Most managed services offer the option to select from a bouquet of services, so you only pay for the things you need. They can upscale or downgrade this according to your needs.
Ongoing Support and Service
Your in-house IT staff members work traditional office hours unless you’re prepared to pay overtime. They also take leave and might call in sick on occasion.
So, if you’re faced with an IT crisis after hours or when the necessary team member isn’t at work, you’ve got a major problem.
Managed IT services always have someone available to assist you. Some vendors employ people from around the world, so they can assist in any time zone.
Thanks to an abundance of personnel, shift work, and remote international workers, there’s always someone there when you call for help.
Remote capabilities mean outsourced IT service providers can assist you with problems from their workstations, or reach out to work-from-home employees when needed.
If necessary, they can help your team members master complex new systems over the phone. This helps reduce the costs and hassle of providing extra training every time you upgrade your systems.
Most importantly, your outsourced IT providers monitor your systems and security around the clock to prevent minor glitches from becoming major headaches. Often, they can resolve any problems before you even notice anything’s amiss.
Enhanced Security
Cybercrime is only getting more advanced and dangerous as time goes on. That means you need state-of-the-art security measures to keep your data safe from threats and theft.
Outsourced IT services will ensure your company and client data stays secure by upgrading your cybersecurity systems in line with the highest standards and keeping them updated. Regular scans for viruses and malware reduce your chances of falling victim to security breaches and harmful viruses.
Daily backups are essential to keep your business running when disaster strikes in the form of natural upheavals or system failure.
An outsourced services provider ensures these vital daily backups take place, and they’ll store your backup data in a secure offsite location. That means you can continue with business as usual as soon as possible if fire or floods damage your business premises.
Thanks to advanced security measures, these professionals can guarantee that your data, trade secrets, and customer information stay safe and secure no matter what.
You might assume that you get better loyalty from in-house personnel, but if you ever have to fire someone who’s had access to your data, you could face a major security risk.
An external vendor only allows high-level personnel access to your confidential information and can ensure your systems stay secure if they leave the company.
Improves Business Operations
Every business owner aspires to enhance the productivity and efficiency of their business. Managed IT services can help you do just that.
Here’s how:
Streamlined Services
When you have the latest, greatest tech tools at your disposal, you can ramp up your business efficiency many times over. Without the hassle associated with downtime, bugs, and glitches, you’ll find things tick along a lot smoother.
Thanks to outsourced IT, and ongoing monitoring services, you needn’t worry about these issues hampering your productivity.
Boosting Productivity
When your IT systems function at their best, your employees can do so, too. Without the hindrances caused by tech upsets, your employees can meet their deadlines easily and enjoy enhanced job satisfaction.
Since outsourced providers help you find the latest and best technologies for your business, you’ll find things get done a lot quicker when you’re running updated, well-maintained technology and software.
Outsource services will also help you find and fine-tune important aspects of your business. These include risk assessments, data organization, storage and retrieval, and security.
Improved Customer Service
Faster systems and enhanced productivity translate into better customer satisfaction levels. That means better ratings, glowing reviews, and more new customers.
With the best technology at your disposal, you can employ the latest innovations when it comes to telephony, wireless internet connectivity, and seamless inter-departmental communications.
Choosing the Best Managed Services
To get the best benefits for your business from a cost and performance point of view, you need to know what you need before engaging with a managed services provider. These are some things to consider:
Assess Your Current IT Systems
To improve your current systems, you need to know where its shortcomings are. A thorough assessment helps you understand the following in line with your business goals:
- Workflows and systems you need to implement
- Your current resources
- Your budget for IT management
If you already have an in-house IT team, you’ll need fewer services compared to a business that has nothing in place.
Take your long-term needs into consideration, too. A simple IT maintenance and management system might work well for now, but what are you likely to need in the future?
Depending on this, it might make sense to increase your existing IT team or hire an IT services provider that offers more extensive services.
Request an Audit of Your System
Based on the above, you can research IT providers in your area and compile a shortlist of the most suitable ones.
Ask each of them to perform an audit on your existing systems to help you gauge whether they offer the range of services and experience you need.
You must choose a provider that’s competent in the specialized software of hardware you’re currently using or can offer concrete solutions for your challenges.
You must ensure they’re familiar with any industry standards and compliance criteria in your realm of business. If they can’t deliver on the above, you need to keep searching.
Think About Your Future Needs
Assess the capacity of the services on offer by each vendor. Can they scale their offering to suit your future needs and upgrade their facilities accordingly?
If they can’t grow with you, they’ll only cause more of a bottleneck in your operations. Ideally, they should already have more bandwidth, service hours, and expertise than you need currently.
Do you envision major infrastructure amendments soon? If so, you need to ensure that they can support these changes efficiently and effectively.
Working With a Managed Service Provider
When you’ve found one or more service providers that meet your needs, there are a few more questions to ask. These include:
Do You Have Clearly Defined, Actionable SLAs?
When you contract your IT tasks to an outside company, they must be accountable for their services. This should include clear reporting on system performance and services rendered.
Avoid providers who won’t provide transparency or metrics.
Do You Offer Strategic Planning Services?
Guidance on planning infrastructure changes, additions, and upgrades are the usual components of the IT services bouquet. Your provider must understand your current system and help you manage it according to your future needs and goals.
Can I Get References?
An IT services provider must have experience working with other businesses in your industry. Ask them about these and then get in touch with the relevant companies to gauge their satisfaction levels.
If a provider can’t or won’t provide proof of value, they’re not the best choice for you.
Making Your Business The Best it Can Be
Managed services are only one of the wonderful assets available to help you enhance your business today.
They’re by far the best way to ensure your business stays competitive and able to harness the power of the modern technology available now and in the future.
