Managed IT service providers are increasingly becoming more popular, and according to a recent report by Insight Research Corporation, it will continue to grow n the next several years. Supported IT support is a procedure whereby the company outsources its IT functions to an external provider – a Managed Service Provider (MSP).
Managed Service Provider is a company that manages an organization’s IT user systems and infrastructure from a remote location. An MSP is a security consultant, disaster recovery expert, and network administrator rolled into one. These IT support providers handle business to business integration, supply chain management, information services, and all the IT tasks you don’t want to carry out yourself. Here are some of the major benefits of managed IT support providers.
1. Freed-up resources
Both internal IT staff and business owners would rather focus on revenue-generating functions like the creation of cutting-edge services/applications or product development. Managed IT service providers free up company manpower, resources, infrastructure from different ranges of responsibility. Experts offer 24/7 support, ensuring the smooth functioning of all your IT systems.
With a reliable MSP, you never will have to worry about network or infrastructure failure on the cloud front. Maintenance and updates can be handled from anywhere, with enough protection. So, you can totally relax and focus on your core business.
2. Cost savings
Maintaining networks and infrastructure in-house can result in significant cost overheads, especially if you are running a small/medium-sized companies with limited resources. With a managed IT support provider, you only pay for what you use at a particular time. They already have the equipment needed to set up the workforce and infrastructure required for effective IT support.
That way, you can lower IT expenses, reduce the cost of operation, and conserve capital budget so that you can focus on core business instead of spending the limited time to plan infrastructure handling. Besides, MSP offer pays as you go service, which allows you to get cloud services that don’t consume a large part of your IT budget. This is very important for small and medium-sized businesses as it spells significant cost savings.
3. Security
Cybercrime is rapidly evolving, with millions of organization’s accounts getting compromised yearly. As businesses grow, so do chances of a security breach and cybersecurity risks. The security landscape is complex and needs the expertise to understand and navigate it. When you manage your security in-house, you may not be able to always keep up with the latest technologies due to costs and resources.
Managed IT support providers have the know-how and the latest technologies which have already been tested and trusted with varieties of security threats. MSPs continuously update their portfolios to make sure their clients’ data is protected and maximized 24/7 because new offerings constantly develop in the marketplace. Some of the common security services include intrusion, managed firewall, endpoint protection, private network, and vulnerability.
4. Strong infrastructure
The infrastructure needed for running networks entails several moving parts, and for these parts to robustly and smoothly function, you need to have a couple of processes in place and continuously inject funds. When you share network management responsibility, you can reduce expenses and offload lots of infrastructure responsibility.
With that, your business can have more room for diversification and be agile. In addition, MSPs offer 24/7 infrastructure management services that allow your network infrastructure to always be in a robust state.
5. Data recovery and disaster management
For a company that has on-premise IT infrastructure, a critical server failure or disaster can leave the company in a mess that significantly affects their daily business operations. The companies risk losing data that is important to their overall business function and growth. Moreover, keeping tools operational and data recovery processes throughout the year is another overhead that companies end up taking.
If your company stores all its data on the cloud, the most disastrous situation can simply be another day at the office. With MSP, you will experience minimal downtime, which is a huge plus when you consider how much downtime could cost your company. Moreover, in the event of a host failure, there are usually stand-by cloud servers that can be used.
6. Automatic upgrades
The IT landscape continually evolves, and new trend keeps popping up every day. Often, you need to either make a few adjustments here and there or undertake a significant upgrade to keep up with the varying requirements. Furthermore, on-premise servers are a massive burden for businesses. Security and maintenance costs are fixed expenses that enterprises need to spend for their servers to be constantly functional.
A managed service provider gives you the scalability and flexibility to evolve and adapt by enabling personalization to the current service or accommodating new tools/processes to the current setting. And all these are done without upsetting your current business processes.
