In our digitally-driven, hyper-connected world, the need for businesses to be available online has grown into a round-the-clock necessity. If a server goes down, a network fails, or a website won’t load, business operations can quickly grind to a halt.
It can be nearly impossible for an internal information technology (IT) team to monitor and manage all of the digital tools modern businesses now rely on. This is the reason managed IT services were created!
What are managed IT services? How can modern, growing businesses leverage them to become more efficient and secure while remaining cost-effective? Let’s dive in.
What Are Managed IT Services?
By definition, managed services allow a business to “offload IT operations to a service provider, known as a Managed Service Provider (MSP). The managed service provider assumes an ongoing responsibility for 24-hour monitoring, managing, and/or problem resolution for the IT systems within a business.”
To put it in simpler terms, managed IT services are essentially outsourced IT.
5 Reasons to Leverage Managed IT Services in Your Modern Business
Many modern companies are making the shift from internal IT departments to managed IT services, and they have good reasons for doing so. Here are five key benefits of leveraging managed IT services:
1. Moving to a Proactive Approach to IT Services
You’re likely familiar with the traditional method of repair called "break-fix." If something breaks, you get someone to fix it—but if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. In the world of IT services, this means systems are only serviced when something has already gone wrong. This puts everyone into a panicked state and creates a scramble to repair a business-critical problem—and this is often where mistakes are made.
On the other hand, managed IT services help you prevent and proactively prepare for, rather than react to, technical issues long before they ever happen. So, instead of minor issues going unnoticed or building up to a business-disrupting problem, proactive monitoring and management minimizes the risk that you’ll lose time and money to an unexpected IT nightmare.
2. Reducing Downtime and Improving Recovery Speed
Downtime due to technical problems can create a domino-like effect on productivity throughout your entire organization. When your employees can’t access the tools they need to do their jobs — and your customers can’t access your website or applications — no one is happy. When you have 20 employees waiting in line to get ahold of your internal technical support team, it only draws out that downtime! Because MSPs have the ability to monitor, identify, and rectify problems before they even happen, downtime due to IT issues becomes almost non-existent.
The result? A strong brand reputation and increased customer satisfaction rates because customers will see you as reliable and organized, plus less frustrated employees who can actually be productive on the job! MSPs also provide backup solutions to protect critical information, and can provide alternative avenues for service continuations in the event that a disaster like a security breach does unfortunately occur. Considering just how damaging downtime can be to your bottom line, this can be a life saver in cases of emergencies!
3. Saving Money on IT Costs
Working with a managed service provider gives you access to a skilled, full-time, and complete IT staff at a fraction of the cost it would take to have all those employees on your own payroll. This is especially true for small businesses who simply don’t have the time, budget, or resources to handle IT all on their own.
Working with a managed service provider is incredibly valuable because you can get access to the experience and expertise you need immediately. And, you don’t have to pay for high salaries, recruitment costs, training, and competitive benefits that skilled IT professionals and cybersecurity experts are demanding in today’s ultra-competitive IT job market.
Additionally, MSPs provide their services at a fixed monthly rate, which is based on your actual usage needs. This increases scalability and prevents you from having to pay for additional infrastructure or hardware you aren’t using. Between reduced labor costs, the reduction of internal IT infrastructure, and lowered maintenance expenses, a managed service provider can help your business stay efficient and secure without breaking the bank!
4. Freeing up IT Resources
MSPs can relieve your internal IT staff of mundane maintenance tasks, repetitive monitoring, and other dull day-to-day operational duties that don’t actively help your business meet its goals. These kinds of routine tasks aren’t exciting or fun, which is one of the main reasons they’re often neglected—but this can end up being detrimental later.
Freeing up time and resources for your internal staff can help place a renewed emphasis on core business initiatives. Instead of dealing with a glitch in the network or an employee who can’t get an application to load, your internal IT staff can dedicate their energy and focus on higher-value tasks like application development or improving operations.
5. Improving Security
If your internal IT staff is overwhelmed, patch management is one thing that often ends up moving to the back burner. This can leave an organization at risk for downtime, security vulnerabilities, and incidents if patches are too far out of date.
Managed service providers can help you avoid these risks by ensuring your company’s IT network, applications, software, and patches are continuously updated to the most recent versions for you. This takes the pressure of having to keep track of all the necessary updates off your internal team while giving you peace of mind that your confidential business data is always secure.
Experience a New Kind of Managed IT Services with Digital Office Equipment
Many MSPs out there will sell a product and then leave you to figure out how to use it on your own. At DOE, we’re on a mission to change this status quo around managed service providers.
Our managed IT services provide the ongoing support, guidance, and technical support you need to make the most out of your digital transformation and achieve your business goals. If you have more questions or are ready to start the shift towards managed IT services, reach out to one of our experts today!