As a small to medium-sized business, you might not have an IT department. That can seem an insurmountable problem, because there are many benefits to having an IT department of your own. But there’s a workaround. Having a managed IT services provider at your side gives you an IT department by default – along with many other benefits and advantages.
In this article we’ll look at:
- a general overview of managed IT services, what they offer, and common uses for them
- the many managed IT service benefits you receive by switching to a managed services model.
A General Overview of Managed IT Services
What Managed IT Services Are Most Often Used?
The Importance of IT in Business Operations
Advantages of Transferring to a Managed Services Model
A General Overview of Managed IT Services
Managing IT services is a great option for reducing your in-house IT workload or filling gaps in your IT roles and skills. It also helps you attain all the skills of an internal IT department if needed.
Managed services provide remote, hybrid, or in-office IT support – from on-demand response to 24-hour coverage. They can be used for on-premises IT as well as private cloud storage.
Critically, using managed services can
- increase your IT efficiency,
- improve uptime management, and
- reduce your in-house overhead.
Just ensure that the managed services providers (MSPs) you’re choosing amongst properly enforce data protection and privacy standards to comply with national and international regulatory entities.
Differences Between Managed IT Services and Cloud Services
Before we understand the nuances between managed IT services and cloud services, let’s get back to basics: What is a service provider?
The ability to meet your customers’ needs heavily depends on your digital infrastructure. From communication to interactions, most of it happens in the digital realm. Yet, not all businesses have unlimited resources to meet their digital needs.
Fortunately, service providers supplement your business’s in-house IT staff and technology, providing a cost-effective way to manage and scale IT infrastructure.
And if you currently don’t have an IT department, a service provider supplies an IT department by default.
These various services include titles such as managed service providers, cloud service providers, application service providers, and more. We’ll define two of them…
What is a cloud service provider?
Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) are organizations offering on-demand services to meet the cloud computing requirements for your business needs. These services are provided through the CSP’s cloud infrastructure and require you to access them through an internet connection.
Some of the cloud services provided by cloud computing services include
- Software-as-a-Service (SaaS),
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and
- Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
They’re provided via the CSP and you can choose one or all.
What is a managed service provider?
A Managed Service Provider is a company that remotely manages your IT infrastructure. Small to medium-sized businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies hire MSPs to perform daily management services such as network and infrastructure management, security, and monitoring.
Managed Service Providers take care of daily management tasks for their customers’ organizations so that they can concentrate on improving their services without worrying about system downtimes or service interruptions.
MSPs can specialize in different segments of IT, such as data storage, or focus on specific vertical markets like legal, financial services, healthcare, or manufacturing.
In addition, some MSPs provide specialized services like remote firewall administration and other security-as-a-service offerings, while others maintain printers and supply consumables.
MSPs can perform their tasks remotely over the Internet.
What is the Purpose of Managed Services?
The purpose of these convenient managed services is to handle your business’s IT effectively. A managed services provider will therefore help you:
- Save on costs
- Enhance service quality
- Allow internal teams (whether IT teams or other departments) to focus on their specific tasks
Interestingly, a managed services provider can be not only a company but also a single person who offers these services.
Now that it’s all clearly defined, we can get into the most common services small to medium-sized businesses use managed IT services for.
What Managed IT Services Are Most Often Used?
Managed IT services or co-managed services utilize cutting-edge technologies to help your business remain competitive while saving time, money, and resources on IT operations.
Partnering with a dependable services provider can yield numerous benefits, including:
- Access to affordable technical support
- Streamlined operations
- Optimized payroll
These are often requested. But in addition to basic infrastructure management, the other most frequently offered managed services include:
1 Consulting and advising on your IT
Managed IT experts can help your business stay ahead of the technology curve through IT consulting services. Strategic road-mapping and goal-setting can enhance collaboration, productivity, and profitability.
They also ensure industry-specific regulation compliance and provide network maintenance and advice to optimize resource utilization.
2 Support via help desk
Remote IT help desk support services offer technical assistance and troubleshooting to resolve issues quickly and with minimal disruption to operations.
IT help desk technicians can provide remote help quickly. Therefore, your IT issues are addressed before they can cause significant disruptions to your business.
3 Cybersecurity services
An MSP can assess your security measures and provide expert recommendations for the best options instead of using a one-size-fits-all solution.
4 Cloud service management
Real-time monitoring of security compliance and access controls is crucial for managing cloud-based applications.
Partnering with an MSP can help identify efficiency and scalability goals and develop long-term cost-saving strategies for your cloud infrastructure.
5 Technology monitoring and management
An experienced MSP can provide cost-effective solutions tailored to your needs, handling technology procurement, monitoring, and management. They can proactively monitor system performance to identify potential problems before they cause disruption. Trustworthy MSPs have all the bases covered!
6 Data backup and disaster recovery
Having a data backup and disaster recovery plan is crucial for your business survival. You need regular backups to prevent data loss and ensure systems are ready for recovery in a disaster.
The Importance of IT in Business Operations
Your IT operations are crucial for your business. They provide an accessible way for everyone to communicate, regardless of where you’re located in the world.
And via the internet, IT also provides features to grow your business, create new products, increase your reach through marketing, and more.
So – let’s look at two important IT business operations and the benefits managed IT services can deliver.
1 IT increases business productivity
IT plays a crucial role in enhancing productivity within a company. While admins make necessary system adjustments to enable employees to work more efficiently and achieve faster results, your developers and employees can work without issues.
For instance, imagine a scenario where your managed services team uses automation for your invoice processing system. This results in a shortened processing time and lowers the risk of errors, saving your company time and money. Your employees can then focus on more important tasks as a result.
2 Improved data management
Computers provide a faster and more efficient way to collect and analyze large amounts of data, which can help you solve challenges. You can easily store and maintain client records and extract valuable insights for analysis using a centralized database.
However, there’s always a risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data, which can lead to significant business losses. To prevent this, managed services teams are vigilant and prepared for any potential threats to ensure the safety and security of your data.
As you can see, your information technology network can provide your business with important functions you can’t do without. And sometimes, it’s hard to keep up with it all. That’s why having someone to manage it for you is an attractive proposition!
Managed IT Services Benefits
We’ve briefly touched on some ways IT is important to your business operations. However, managed services have many benefits we have yet to mention.
Here are a few.
1 Improved Business Efficiency
With IT systems running smoothly and your service provider proactively monitoring any issues that may arise, your business can function without hiccups, allowing your in-house employees to work on more critical matters.
As a result, your internal teams become more productive and efficient.
2 Data Protection and Backup Systems
One of the biggest benefits of managed IT services includes data protection and backup solutions for all your data. This incorporates backup and disaster recovery, prevention, encryption, and ransomware attack protection.
3 Access to the Latest Technology
Managed services supply your company with the latest technology as it becomes available.
Cutting-edge tools and software allow your organization to keep up with the big companies at the top.
4 Cost-Effectiveness
By outsourcing your support services, you can cut overhead costs, including salaries, benefits, and office space, which leads to substantial savings.
These savings occur because managed IT services give you access to a managed service provider and an expert managed services team. You don’t have to onboard, hire, pay for training, provide an annual salary, or pay for healthcare and other benefits.
The payment structure of a managed IT service is a predictable, flat monthly fee.
5 Improved Customer Satisfaction and Experience
All of the above-mentioned managed IT services benefits directly help your business. However, it trickles down to your customer experience and satisfaction.
Let’s review the benefits to your customers.
Proactive monitoring and maintenance
IT service providers monitor and maintain IT infrastructure – such as website uptime and help-desks – to prevent issues and ensure smooth operations for your customers, who will otherwise go elsewhere.
Rapid issue resolution
In the event of IT failures, a services provider is on the scene quickly, any time of day or night. Timely problem-solving leads to positive customer experiences.
Scalability and flexibility
If your organization depends on customers utilizing your IT infrastructure and servers, managed IT services can adjust to a company’s changing needs. They can provide adaptable solutions for increasing server capacity, adding new users, or incorporating new applications. This allows your IT infrastructure to run smoothly so you cater for your growing number of customers with no problems.
Customer data security and protection
Services providers implement:
- firewalls,
- antivirus software,
- data encryption,
- and backups to keep customer data secure.
An organization that safeguards sensitive customer data is a company worth trusting. Any breach will quickly emerge on social media and undermine you!
Cost optimization by outsourcing an IT team
Managed services help businesses optimize their IT budget with a transparent pricing model. Companies who refrain from hiring and training an in-house IT team by partnering with a provider save money. These savings are then passed down to your customers. In the current economic climate, it makes sense to outsource for this benefit alone.
As you can see, there are many benefits of managed services.
But how does this directly affect your business? What are the advantages of transferring to a managed services model?
Let’s get into that below.
Advantages of Transferring to a Managed Services Model and How it Helps Your Business
We’ve given you many benefits of managed services and advantages that help you understand how managed services help your business.
However, now the question becomes, what are the advantages of transferring to a managed service organization?
How does it directly help your business?
And most importantly, how does it impact the money going in and out of your business?
1 Save on IT costs
Outsourcing IT saves on physical space and hardware expenses. A managed service provider handles all infrastructure, freeing up space for inventory and employees.
It also saves on maintenance and energy costs, employee training, licensing, and certifications. That’s less money going out of your pocket.
2 Save money on new training and certification
In the business world, time is money, which means you save time training employees on new software and processes by letting your MSP handle compliance and backup concerns and other IT-related issues.
3 Better ROI
Outsourcing is a low-risk business strategy that can yield a high return on investment. By transferring to a services provider, you can save on salaries for full-time IT employees and their benefits, and also on hardware, maintenance, and space costs.
Additionally, outsourcing can increase productivity and efficiency.
4 Reinvest in marketing strategies and new revenue streams
Saving time and money and bringing in a high ROI can help you:
- Explore new revenue streams
- Expand product lines
- Increase inventory
- Boost sales through increased marketing efforts
5 Managing risk is better than an expensive data breach
Investing comes with risks, but non-compliance and data insecurity are even riskier. A managed service provider can handle the technological and regulatory aspects, ensuring secure data storage and backup while saving physical and storage space on your networks.
The cybersecurity you receive keeps you from paying for law suits or hiring a data breach organization to handle affairs after an incident.
Uprite Managed IT Services Can Provide These Advantages and Benefits
If the benefits sound right for your business, why not partner with Uprite today? Whether you’d like a managed or co-managed service, at Uprite we’ll help you:
- Future-proof your IT solutions
- Proactively monitor and manage your IT
- Gain from responsive IT support
- Benefit from advanced cybersecurity
- And so much more.
Speak to one of our specialists today. Let’s talk!