We are becoming increasingly reliant on digital innovation as a nation to stay ahead of the competition and provide a better customer experience. It's no surprise that demand for IT teams has increased in tandem with advances in technology and innovation. And, as IT teams buckle under the pressure of senior management teams' expectations, many businesses consider turning to a managed service provider to help with the workload.
What is a Managed Service Provider(MSP)?
Managed Service Providers, or MSPs, are highly skilled technology partners who support and manage your company's IT and can assist in elevating and streamlining your business processes. Managed service providers help your internal IT function, freeing up your key personnel to focus on your core business objectives and services.
MSPs help businesses grow by providing technological solutions and resources that alleviate the burden of hiring internal resources. MSPs typically handle most of your IT requirements on an ongoing basis, including network, application, security, and infrastructure management (typically on 12-month contracts). MSPs can also provide value-added services like cloud telephony, connectivity, and cyber security solutions, which can help your organization protect itself and maintain a competitive advantage.
Why Should Your Company Get It?
Managing large-scale operations can be difficult for small and medium-sized businesses alike. Given the importance of every function in business, the question of where and how to allocate resources is frequently perplexing. And this is where bringing on a managed service provider comes into play. Hiring a managed service provider for your IT infrastructure or application can help you gain an advantage in a variety of ways. Professional and effective managed services can assist your company in not only streamlining operations but also optimizing the value of your IT infrastructure for your business and innovating and adopting new technologies. Three out of four companies in North America have chosen Managed Services, and here are the reasons why you should too:
- Competitive Advantage
An effective managed IT service provider can assist you in identifying solutions that will increase your competitive advantage. This includes enhancing service delivery, increasing productivity, and increasing system reliability.
We recently assisted DECC, an Australian company, in accomplishing this. We designed and built a centralized cloud system that allows their employees to connect to the company's AutoCAD platform from anywhere in the world. This increased their productivity and saved them money by eliminating the need to buy expensive laptops. The company's security has improved, and employees can now access and back up their files regardless of where they work.
- Avoid Downtime
An MSP, rather than being reactive, can assist your company in taking a proactive approach to critical systems. Great MSPs, for example, will continuously monitor your systems and resolve issues before they become a problem. If a problem arose, they would conduct root cause analysis (RCA) to prevent it from occurring again.
In other words, an MSP can assist you in increasing uptime while decreasing downtime. And, when downtime costs on average just under £4,000 per minute (or $5,600), it's easy to see why working with an MSP is so beneficial.
- Availability of cutting-edge technology
To remain competitive in today's world, where new technological solutions emerge in the blink of an eye, keeping up with trends and improvements is unavoidable. However, most businesses cannot afford continuous in-house innovation, development, and implementation. As a result, this is another area in which the managed service provider can excel. Proper MSPs have access to cutting-edge technology or have developed their solution, with 100% dependability and flexibility in terms of client-specific customizations. Managed services, with a unified interface, stringent security requirements, rapid implementation, and necessary automation, can elevate clients' overall processes while lowering costs.
Whether it's advisory, payroll, accounting, or other back-office services, managed service providers can speed up the adoption of IT solutions or applications even if the client lacks properly trained staff to use or implement them. In such cases, the MSP can bridge the talent gap and assume responsibility for the missing resources, as well as provide necessary training.
- Cost Effective
It takes experienced talent to manage new IT infrastructure and applications when they are implemented and adopted. While hiring these experts in-house may appear advantageous, it may increase your costs in the long run because you will be constantly on the lookout for people whenever you need to scale or change your IT. A Managed Service Provider, on the other hand, can help you manage your entire IT operation from start to finish. You save money on staffing, salaries, taxes, and a variety of other expenses.
- Experts In The Team
Your employees and you are experts at what you do best in your company. We specialize in IT services. You will have access to staff who have advanced training, in-depth knowledge, and years of experience in finding the best solutions to your problems if you choose managed IT services. We can assist you in making the most of your existing infrastructure while also knowing how to future-proof your company's growth with the most appropriate technology. If we come across an unusual problem, we can call on the expertise of our entire team to solve it as soon as possible.
- Increased Cybersecurity
In recent years, businesses have begun to recognize the security threats they face and the value of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. Keeping up with this requires a full-time security expert - or team!
However, it is not always feasible to hire a full-time employee solely for this purpose. Unfortunately, this also means that you are more likely to experience downtime, data breaches, malware, and other issues.
When you work with an MSP, their security experts become an extension of your team. Furthermore, they will have critical software designed to anticipate and target breaches even before they occur.
Cyber threats can be costly and damaging to a company's reputation. Cyber-attacks come in many forms, including data breaches, phishing scams, and ransomware attacks. MSP can help keep your business safe from these threats by providing round-the-clock monitoring services, and an IT technician is only a phone call away if you ever need help.