Top 10 Reasons Businesses Partner with Managed IT Service Providers

Every business, large or small, is faced with a need for IT expertise. You want to grow your business and stay true to your mission, but your computers need maintenance, and you are not sure what might happen if you face a data breach. Maybe you have an IT guy swamped with service requests. Perhaps you have a whole IT department that is squandering talent fixing printers and installing software patches instead of developing the business-essential system for which you hired them. Maybe you do not have a dedicated IT department, but instead, you have a tech-savvy employee being pulled away from his valuable work every time something goes haywire.

Whatever your specific needs, a Managed IT Service provider relationship deserves serious consideration. Managed services can be added to your current management model and relieve many IT worries.

1.  Predictable Costs

When budgeting for IT, it is hard to know how much time, energy and money to plan for at any given time. Electronics sometimes enjoy throwing your best-laid plans out the window. How do you budget for time spent fixing a printer that has never been a problem before or tracking down that update that led to the infamous blue screen of death? An MSP lays out their costs up front in a Service Agreement. You pay a monthly fee, so your expense account doesn't suffer every time the electronics get too close to the window.

2.  Additional IT Skills

No matter how you slice your IT needs, they consist of vastly different skill sets. Networking Infrastructure, Security, Software, Hardware, Operating Systems and User Management are just a few areas to consider. A few employees entrusted with caring for all these business-critical systems can be the source of frustrations throughout the company. An MSP can quickly add a wide range of IT skills by having many specialized employees.

3.  Experience

An experienced MSP provides next-level experience. Because MSPs work with many companies, systems, programs, and end users, they are experts in most IT problems your business may face. When an issue arises, an internal IT department may spend hours investigating and researching the problem. With years of experience working with many different customers, an MSP likely has already seen, solved, and documented the problem.

4.  Scaling Up

Scaling can be a challenging endeavor. Strategically planning every aspect of growth to reach the next goal can be a daunting task. The best-laid plans do not always point toward the path your business takes. An MSP is prepared to quickly handle systems integrations, security, and networks at any growth rate, allowing you to focus on your customers and your products as you reach new levels.

5.  Adapt to Changes

While growth can be excellent, sometimes you need to refocus your efforts on a smaller target market and quickly adapt to a changing marketplace. Adaptability is at the root of an MSP’s strategy allowing you to refocus or redefine your needs as a company while feeling comfortable with your IT partner’s ability to handle systems, networks, and software requirements.

6.  Data Management

Your business has data. Your data is essential to your operation, but it is also important to your vendors and your customers. Data must be secure to continue those relationships, and an MSP can evaluate your data security needs and help you develop processes to prevent common security breaches. If the unforeseeable does happen, an MSP can quickly respond, recovering lost data and avoiding further disaster.

7.  Compliance

The laws and regulations for data and communications are continually being revised, reviewed and rewritten. If your business is not IT focused, keeping up with the compliance rules can seem impossible, but an MSP can keep up with those for you and advise you on changes you should make to meet with the latest compliance regulations in the IT industry.

8.  CyberSecurity

Since the infamous 2016 data breaches that haunted the news, businesses and end users have become ever more aware of cybersecurity risks. According to Databarracks 2016 Data Health Check, 23 percent of data loss incidents in 2016 was due to human error. Keywords like DDOS, ransomware, malware, spyware, and data breach have become regular terms tossed around anytime you are talking about IT. An MSP can identify these threats and help minimize your vulnerability to them, as well as prepare your business for the worst case. In the event of a disaster, your MSP can reduce downtime and streamline recovery.

9.  Proactive Approach

The most cited reason on the internet to have an MSP is a proactive IT strategy. The IT world is always moving and changing. You want to be at the front edge of important technology so your business can compete in your industry. You also want to focus on offering your customers the best products or services. A good MSP has a proactive strategy that prevents problems rather than waiting for problems and fixing after a mess has occurred. They keep up to date on products and industry standards and in turn, can keep your systems and networks up to date.

10. Improved IT Management

An MSP offers a single point of contact where all end users can report problems and management can monitor problems throughout the company. According to Forrester Research, common IT problems across all employees cost Fortune 100 companies alone more than $100 billion annually. That translates to over 8% of productive work hours lost due to IT problems and user error. Your MSP can facilitate user documentation and training reducing the number of problems that arise and the time lost from user errors.

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