The Value of Managed Services

Let’s face it, many small-to-medium sized businesses simply don’t have the budget to build out their own internal IT department.

When stuck in this situation, I’ve seen companies take two different approaches.

The first involves having a known acquaintance that “knows a thing or two about computers” be the company’s part-time/as-needed IT support. The trouble with this ad-hoc approach is that the IT person is only there when things are broken and need fixing. The IT person doesn’t assume responsibility for the company's infrastructure, he’s just simply there to get them back to a working-state again. By using this approach, companies’ can easily rack up hours on service calls and don’t have a clear picture of the stability/reliability of their environment.

The second approach involves employing the services of a Managed Services Provider (MSP). There are many advantages to this approach, some of which I’ll outline below.

1. Cost-controlling - By implementing the MSP approach, you know exactly what your bill will be every month and what services you’ll be receiving.
2. Experienced Support - MSPs typically employ IT staff that has “been there and done that” so that your support issues/questions can be quickly diagnosed and remedied.
3. Reduced Risk - By allowing an MSP to manage your infrastructure, you don’t have to worry about “is our data backed up?” or “is our server healthy?” or even “if we make this change, what will happen to our network/bandwidth consumption?”.
4. Forward-Focus - The right MSP will take care of your support tickets, as well as provide valuable input on the future of your IT environment and what can be done to improve it with newer technology. For example, you may have a physical Windows Server in your office that is serving as your company fileserver. When the Windows Server version is unsupported, rather than replacing it with a new server or upgrading the Windows Server version, your MSP can assist with migrating that fileserver role to a cloud-based alternative that can provide better reliability, secure backups, and much more. This is one of many areas where an MSP is a value-added service to your company.

If you are a small-to-medium sized business that is seeking a better option for managing your IT infrastructure, we’d love to chat with you and discuss how CimaCare MSP services can ease your IT-worries.