Running a business is all about optimizations. For every step you take, you have to evaluate the costs involved and the benefits achieved. This is why it makes sense to accomplish most of your delegable tasks via experts who can make the best use of your resources. And that’s why people tend to prefer managed IT services over their in-house solutions. As reported by IBM, about 80% of companies tend to prefer managed IT services. It does not come as a surprise that the IT managed services market is expected to become a $329.1 billion industry by 2025. There are multiple reasons why. First of all, outsourcing IT services offloads a huge deal of management overhead from your shoulders and improves efficiency. Then, most importantly, you get to work with professionals with exemplary expertise to harness the vast advantages that technology can provide your business.
But let’s get deeper. Here are some irrefutable reasons why using IT managed services is the way to go.
Facilitates Better Technical Advancement
Business organizations, for the most part, tend to follow rigid processes and hierarchies. So when they have to adapt to a new change, they will always be met with some level of resistance. And technology is something that keeps evolving. Companies have had to develop their IT strategies over the years continuously. At first, it was the introduction of workstations that digitized most of the manual tasks. Then came the wide use of intranet and the internet to connect with internal and external databases, ERP software, payroll systems, and more. And then for the past couple of years, the trend has been to migrate to cloud-hosted solutions, which are now deemed a necessity given the widespread need for remote working models. Concepts like BYOD and IoT are also gaining traction nowadays. So, as you can see, technology will never stay constant. Companies have a hard time catching up every time something new pops up. They have to understand the latest upgrades, form new IT policies and strategies, and train their employees accordingly. The process of migrating to advanced systems will always be a challenging task when you have an in-house IT team that is so used to the old ways of doing things. But with a managed IT service partner, everything can become a lot easier. Managed IT services can take care of all the maintenance, upgrades, and day-to-day running of your systems and services and facilitate a smooth transition every time. They are the experts, after all. You can avoid going through a trial and error phase and simply hand over the challenging technical transitions to your managed IT service provider. So in every way, it is a win-win. You get access to the latest technology at no additional cost, and your service provider gets to do business with you.
Cost-Effective
Though mentioned already, let us repeat. Managed IT services are cost-effective. If all types of businesses were to agree on one thing, it would be that you should always seek out cost-effective options for any task you take up. Consider the alternative to a managed IT service. You have to hire permanent IT employees and manage all your IT-related tasks with one single team. Now, if you have ever ventured into the job market, you know how difficult it is to find talented resources. And if you have managed such resources, you know how difficult it could be to retain them. You spend quite a bit of money on the onboarding process and training for every new resource you hire. You cannot expect your quality hires to work on all the IT grunt work like updating patches and auditing security logs for hours. It would be a waste of precious productive time where your IT team could be focusing on developing better products and business-related developments. Even if a big organization can afford to maintain an in-house IT team, it makes more sense to outsource what can be outsourced to people who are really good at it. As for SMEs, outsourcing is indeed the most affordable solution they can get. They can readily get backed up with an expert IT team from their outsourcing partner without having to put in the investment it takes to manage an in-house team. With managed IT services, you also get accurate billing and can easily track your monthly IT expenses.
Maximized Uptime And 24/7 IT Service Availability
Unless you are a multinational company with a global presence, it can be difficult for you to make sure your IT systems are always up and running. Because a single team simply cannot function well in differing time zones and shifts. If you want your systems running all time, you need the support of professionals with the necessary infrastructure backing. And you guessed it right… A managed IT service provider is what you are looking for. Remember earlier when we mentioned that you get access to the latest tech with managed IT services? This is one of the ways it works. Your IT service provider will have the capabilities to automate the system and network monitoring. They can also employ the necessary resources to keep a constant watch over your systems and ensure all security incidents and data leaks are appropriately taken care of. You will get access to advanced monitoring solutions, IT audits, robust backup solutions, immediate customer support, real-time bug analysis, fixes, and more. You can sleep well without any worries and trust your IT service provider to take care of everything.
Security And Data Protection
If there is one thing you should never compromise with your IT systems, it would be the protection of all the sensitive data you hold. Data leaks can quickly tumble down all the reputation you built so far. It would be so naive to think your company will not be targeted on the internet. Remember the ransomware attacks? Anyone and everyone can bear the brunt of hacking attacks, and for a business, it will be a heavy price to pay. It is predicted that cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Besides security, you will also have to ensure you handle customer data appropriately. Governments all across the world are regulating data usage policies that companies ought to conform to. And the funny thing is, these regulations and compliance policies tend to change very often. So, once again, you need an expert who can make sure you stay compliant and give you the technical assurance and confidence that your data is protected.
Having explained a good portion of the major reasons, here are a few more reasons summarised as to why IT managed services are a favorite for many companies:
· Increased efficiency and reliability of IT operations
· Better security and compliance (we know, we have said this before, we want to show the importance of how IT managed services are crucial for enhancing security).
· Proactive maintenance
· A better ROI and cost-effective IT management
· Better access to the latest tech
· Better access to niche expertise in IT
· Capital expenses can be shifted to operational expenses
· Easy management of monthly IT expenses as it becomes easy to predict pricing and IT costs.
Next, you will get to read about some of the specific features you can get from IT managed services that make your life a lot easier.
While you can indeed implement these yourself, it is simply not feasible in terms of financial viability. For instance, say you want to have an automated AI-based incident response system with all the powerful reporting and backup procedures in place. It will cost you a lot to get the necessary infrastructure set up, licenses, software purchases, and the training to make your employees implement the system. With a managed IT service, all of these and more can be easily achieved with relatively less cost and without any hassle. You don’t have to break your brains trying to fit in a new operation to your already overburdened IT team. A managed IT service team can easily collaborate with your in-house team and provide all the necessary capabilities you seek. Let’s start the list:
Remote Monitoring And Management (RMM)
Possibly one of the amazing perks you can get with IT managed services is that you can get a 24/7 real-time and remote monitoring of your IT infrastructure and systems. IT managed service vendors follow an optimized process and have the necessary resources to make this possible at a low cost. But if you as a single business owner try to take it on yourself, it will be a huge burden on your resources and productivity.
Backup And Disaster Recovery (BDR)
Ensuring data compliance requires that you have proper backup solutions in place. Back-ups also help you ring back your systems back to working condition pretty soon after an attack, data corruption, or a physical disaster with your servers.
Cloud Computing
Just because you use cloud-hosted solutions does not mean everything is well taken care of by the cloud service provider. You still have to monitor your applications for vulnerability. You need to optimize your configurations for better performance, apply proper maintenance procedures, and more. And guess who can help you with that. A good IT managed services provider.
Performance Optimization
The primary reason why businesses prefer cloud solutions nowadays is that they don’t have to keep on upgrading their hardware and software manually every time a new update is out. And you may think that it is not necessary. But falling behind performance optimizations will reflect poorly on your product and services. We all know the world is filled with competition, and you need to have the cutting edge to rise above the competition. And being good at performance is very much necessary to do so. With IT managed services, you get automatically updated with the latest software, hardware, security patches, and more at no added cost. You can also save on the expensive investments you will be making on hardware that could go irrelevant in a couple of years.
IT Support Help Desk
Got a bug you need to get fixed? Got some network issue in the middle of the night? Maybe your in-house IT team may not be prepped with the necessary knowledge and skill to get issues resolved on time. But you can always rely on IT managed services. They are the experts, and they are bound by contract to give you immediate issue resolutions for any of your IT-related queries. Most IT managed service providers offer 24/7 customer service support and multiple channels to reach out to them and get your issues solved quickly.
So you might be wondering what kind of IT services you want to entrust to a service provider. Let’s start with the main types of IT managed services. You can check for yourself which type applies to your case and seek an IT service provider who excels in it. Alternatively, you can also seek the help of the service provider to get a complete audit of your existing IT infrastructure and get the specific details of the services you will need.
Managed Cloud Services
These services are focused on maintaining and managing your applications and data on a cloud platform. It encompasses activities starting from data migration to cloud optimization. IT managed services are available for all types of cloud deployment.
Managed Security Services
All of your IT operations related to security and online safety come under this scope. It could involve network monitoring, security testing, malware protection, anti-virus software installations, application compatibility, patching, and more.
Managed Communication Services
Services related to your VoIP systems, data, voice, and video communication services can all be managed with an IT service provider. You can also integrate your call center operations and other features like email, web, and fax features into your overall IT infrastructure.
Managed Print Services
Print services take care of all your hardware-related maintenance and management operations.
Whatever type of IT managed service you seek, remember to collaborate with trustable and genuine vendors only. There are plenty of imposters running around whom you should be aware of. Some companies have the habit of marketing a particular service and delivering only half of their promise once you have made the payment. Ensure you get the service worth your payment every single time.
You can find genuine and quality service providers through trusted references and reviews. Always check for industry-standard certifications and accreditations. That said, are you looking for a reliable managed IT services provider? We are here to help.
Acropolis Technology Group has been helping businesses in St. Louis with IT support since 1996. Backed by proper certifications and expertise, we know the industry inside-out and would love to extend our helping hand to streamline the IT operations at your business. Fill out the form below or call us today at 314.890.2208 to learn more.
Blog written by: Nikita Mittal