A Managed IT Services Provider can be available as much or as little as you require. Here are our top 6 reasons to consider leveraging a Managed IT Services Provider for your IT Support!
Not yet big enough for in-house IT– Just like with payroll services, it makes business sense to outsource IT services for most small to medium businesses. Usually, there is not enough work for a full-time employee. Typically, full-time IT employee begins to justify their worth around a threshold of 50 to 75 computers. Even then, the employee is going to need to be a jack-of-all-trades. IT is a complicated field that changes rapidly. One individual can’t know everything necessary to run a network. That’s why IT managed services makes sense for smaller businesses. You get to leverage the team of experts at a lower cost than it is to hire someone in-house. Also, managed service providers don’t receive benefits, or vacation, and don’t get sick… Well some do, but if you hire the right managed services company it will never become your problem.
“Outsourced CIO” — Instead of hiring IT Consultants for project based work or technical help, a managed service provider acts as your in-house CIO. Hiring consultants means absorbing a learning curve. The consultant must learn about your business and IT network, before becoming productive. A managed service provider already knows your business and IT needs, eliminating the learning curve cost.
Budget Predictability–Spending less on infrastructure upkeep, tools, and staff is one of the biggest reasons businesses choose managed services. Managing a network and keeping it available is an expensive business; Companies would need their own monitoring tools, equipment, and trained staff. The capital expenditures can often be overwhelming. Managed Services allow service providers to leverage their existing investment in equipment, tools and skills to offer a price point as much as 20-35% lower than the company can achieve alone. Flat-fee managed services give companies predictable IT expense, with no surprises.
Remain agile and meet strategic business priorities— With staff and budget reallocated from managing the IT infrastructure, managed services help businesses re-focus on strategic IT projects and business objectives. By putting their staff and budget on strategic issues they can ensure that the entire team is aligned to business needs. Also, managed services can be scaled up or down depending on business growth.
Reduces business risk–By using IT Industry best practices, managed service providers make support proactive, rather than reactive. This means that the MSP can help the enterprise solve any emerging infrastructure issues before they affect the business. If a problem does arise, the MSP can remedy the issue remotely or with responsive on-site support. In addition, managed services help companies optimize their business applications to keep employees more productive.
Focus on your core business–Information technology changes rapidly and becomes more complicated by the second. This complexity required creates a demand for highly skilled IT positions, OR a significant amount of cost dedicated to training your IT department to get up to speed. Most businesses cannot find or afford the right people needed to fill these positions, so they turn to a “Stewardship” model via managed services providers. Think of this model as the IT General contractor. This individual is ultimately responsible for the infrastructure, but they can’t do it all alone. Hence, he/she has built a strong relationship with one or more service providers to get the job done. By leveraging a Managed IT Services Provider, you spend much less time struggling through the complexities, and more time focusing on your core business.
