The top five reasons to consider employing a Managed Service Provider (MSP)
Traditionally an organisation’s IT services were either exclusively handled by their in-house IT professionals, or outsourced on a piecemeal basis when needed. Over the last decade, however, the trend has been to outsource IT services through a subscription model. This is known as Managed IT, with the businesses doing the work called Managed Service Providers (MSPs).
Managed IT services range from network setup and maintenance to payroll, printer management, backup/recovery, information security, cloud services, and more.
With two-thirds of businesses said to be already employing some form of managed services, the trend is real. In this article, we’ll explore the top reasons you should consider switching to Managed IT, even if you already have full-time IT employees.
Improved security
With 85 per cent of enterprises reportedly using sensitive data in the cloud, a quarter of cybersecurity professionals assessing the probability of future attacks to their organization as very or extremely likely, and 43% of cyber attacks targeting small businesses, the importance of data security has never been greater.
MSPs have teams of information security experts who can implement and maintain your systems better than your in-house IT teams.
A more productive IT team
For organisations that already have an IT team, a common concern is that these employees will be made redundant by subscribing to an MSP. On the contrary, research shows only 6% of organisations remove their IT teams after bringing on an MSP. Instead, the majority of organisations end up using their existing IT professionals to greater effect by allowing them to focus on projects that drive growth and revenue rather than day-to-day IT operations. Freeing up your IT team to work for the growth of your business could be the difference between stagnation and rapid growth.
Leveraging existing and emerging IT capabilities
IT support is not just about fixing problems. There are increasingly powerful productivity tools available to businesses of all sizes. Your MSP can help you integrate these new tools into your organisation, enabling you to benefit from their advantages. For example, integrating the enterprise-grade tools in Office 365 can enable businesses to streamline their auditing and compliance reporting responsibilities, saving them time and money. Have a look at our article on how OneDrive is a key to improving collaboration across your organisation.
Scalability
Organizations using managed IT services have a much easier time handling rapid growth. Rather than having to recruit IT professionals in a short time, they can instantly scale up or downsize their operations by upgrading or downgrading their managed IT plan.
Predictable costs and 24/7 availability
An organization that manages their IT on a piecemeal basis may go several months without incurring costs, only to spend their yearly IT budget in a few days when fires suddenly need to be put out. Going with an MSP provides businesses with predictable monthly IT support costs. Additionally, since MSPs typically offer 24/7 support, there’s no need to worry about downtime or overtime costs.
For more information on how Managed IT services can help your business achieve its full potential, please reach out to us.