Today, businesses strive to be more efficient and capable of generating actionable insights through data using modern-day technology. Since your network houses vital information that enables you to get more work done, you should manage this valuable asset with the utmost care and focus on upkeep and maintenance.
What is IT Managed Services?
IT Managed Services enable businesses to entrust their IT operations to third-party organizations with proven IT expertise. The third-party organizations, called Managed Service Providers (MSPs), are in charge of managing a business’ entire or partial IT operations, depending on their Service Level Agreement (SLA). The IT equipment, however, is usually provided by the client. Depending on the SLA, MSPs may offer around-the-clock monitoring, issue reporting, and resolution, among other things.
Specifically, the SLA streamlines the exact services offered, the degree needed to excel with such services, and the criteria for measuring the services’ success. Additionally, through the SLA, MSPs usually charge a flat fee for the benefits over a definite period.
By adopting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) technologies, Cloud Computing has enabled IT Managed Services to go further than the regions and borders that limit the average break/fix IT. With these feats, IT Managed Services increases and speeds up scalability better than in-house IT operation systems or break/resolve providers.
Why is IT Managed Services Important?
IT Managed Services enable organizational growth as it aligns the outputs of the organization. IT Managed Services will decrease your organization’s problems and ensure services are delivered, as they have KPIs linked to your IT operations.
IT Managed Services also provide peace of mind. By leaving the management of your company’s IT needs to MSPs, you can devote and focus more of your time on running and growing your business. Instead of constantly fixing IT-related problems, IT Managed Services work to prevent the same problems from happening, thereby keeping your systems up and running.
Furthermore, IT Managed Services aligns its services to your company’s vision and goals. More than the daily IT support, MSPs provide an IT Manager and a virtual CIO with whom you can strategically discuss how your IT systems can fit your organizational goals.
Benefits of IT Managed Services
With the rise of IT Managed Services, the cycle of experiencing a problem, calling up an IT expert, and getting stuck in between costly repairs and increased downtime in a reactive service approach known as break-fix, is soon broken. Aside from constant and consistent monitoring, IT Managed Services offer the following benefits:
Predictable Low Cost
Unlike housing an IT team that can drain your budget for frequent and unexpected expenses, IT Managed Services get bundled into a set amount paid on an annual or monthly basis, depending on the SLA.
With the predictability and lower cost offered by IT Managed Services, small businesses reap the most benefits as they can dodge the impending costs of hiring and training a team while simultaneously paying to maintain network servers and other necessary equipment. Prior to making a final decision on a provider, be sure to browse multiple options to ensure that you’re getting the most bang for your buck.
Scalability
IT Managed Services saves you the monetary resources to hire and train an additional employee to your in-house IT team. MSPs not only absorb the costs of training but keeps your IT experts from jumping ship due to feeling as though the company’s evolution is flatlining.
Ensuring the scalability of a network takes intense coordination, significant human resources, and new equipment. Partnering with MSPs rids you of these worries as they allow you to expand or upgrade systems when you need to while simultaneously freeing you of the need to hire and train employees you won’t be needing later on. IT Managed Services can ensure your business’ flexibility to accommodate swift changes, something that might be difficult to do with an in-house IT team.
Experienced MSPs such as Equinix allow you to integrate everything and fully realize the benefit of bringing all of your data applications to the digital edge. They’re experienced in solving enterprise network, security, data, application, and multicloud challenges.
Decreased Downtime
Downtime usually results from equipment issues, such as server failures and computer malfunctions. Additionally, system attacks are also probable causes for rest, especially among small businesses that are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Human errors also account for a portion of downtime. Whatever the reason is, it is important to employ a strong protective system to reduce potential risk.
IT Managed Services can cut down costs due to downtime by preventing it in the first place. Since MSPs constantly and consistently monitor your company’s IT system, downtime instances are controlled, and thereby, minimized.
Partnering with proven experts such as Databank provides you with a robust team of implementation, security, and support specialists to your environment which allows you to focus on innovation. Entrusting your network to organizations with experience securing complex, high performing environments will pay dividends for your business.
Preventive Approach
The appropriate reaction after breaking something is trying to fix it. With networks and data, this is easier said than done. And not to mention, very costly.
Unlike the break-fix approach, IT Managed Services employs a preventive approach. Instead of rushing to call in experts in instances of problems, MSPs constantly monitor your systems for issues and resolve them right away before turning into full-blown disasters. This monitoring does not only save you from downtime but from the impending big dent in your company’s budget as well.
Industry leading MSPs such as Tierpoint deliver best in class technology and skill sets which free your IT staff for strategic projects, as opposed to burning time on reactionary tasks. Having a team that provides day to day management, monitoring, security, and maintenance allows problems to be mitigated prior to them affecting business operations.
Proven Expertise
One of the foremost challenges in developing an in-house IT team is that it is expensive and time-consuming. You cannot know for sure how good your team is until they encounter a serious network issue. Although some may pass and do an outstanding job, others may not be able to solve the problem at all, causing you good money that should have gone somewhere else.
However comfortable you are with your IT team, it is only a matter of time until you find that they are not well-equipped to operate or maintain brand new equipment or procedures as you add them. With IT Managed Services, an MSP’s large team can add specialized services to your team’s expertise. Specifically, an MSP offers you easy access to a group of IT experts whose skills you would not have access to otherwise.
As markets and industries grow more competitive each day, it would only be wise to use a proxy agency. Instead of wasting a reasonable sum of money and a significant amount of time coming up with questionable IT operation systems, it’s safer to trust experts and turn to IT Managed Services.
