Every successful business knows that they remain profitable when everyone is focused on what they do best. So what about your internal IT staff (if you have one)? What if none of them are certified to manage your Exchange server? Or perhaps they don’t have enough time to address daily support issues throughout your company? That’s where an established Managed Services Provider, or MSP (like TekLinks), can come in and make a huge difference for the overall productivity and satisfaction of your entire workforce by providing those essential business IT services.
Here are the top 3 reasons you should consider outsourcing some – or all – of your business IT needs to an MSP.
1. An MSP will help your bottom line.
Are you tired of dealing with a largely unpredictable IT budget? Does it always feel like you’re locked into the same old cycle of break-fix costs and downtime?
MSPs allow you to subscribe to a service for a set amount (per user or per device) each month, and you only pay for what you use. You can say goodbye to over-allocating and overspending just to make sure you have enough resources throughout the year. By taking control of your spending on business IT services each month or quarter, you’ll be able to budget more effectively for the company as a whole.
You’ll also see a marked improvement in your business agility and scalability with managed services. An MSP’s technology experts will be able to implement changes quickly and efficiently, as well as maintain day-to-day operations and even upgrade your network and infrastructure; meanwhile, your and your staff can tackle other initiatives that align more directly with your business goals.
Additionally, your labor costs will go down. If you’re not a tech-savvy person yourself, what assurances do you have that your staff is employing best practices for data security and network efficiency? Developing the right IT talent is a huge investment that not every business can afford. The years of experience and certifications that an MSP’s team of engineers can bring to the table – your table – will well exceed the amount of time and money your could ever invest in training and educating your own staff.
Think about it this way: if your technology isn’t regularly updated to stay secure and to work at optimal levels, you’re probably putting your data at risk every day – and possibly running your entire business on obsolete (and therefore unsupported) application software. MSPs make it their business to keep your IT updated – and they have a highly experienced, certified group of industry experts available around the clock to support your needs via phone or email, or through their help desk.
2. An MSP will help manage your risk.
Do you have everything in place to protect your business from downtime, hackers, malware, or even natural disasters? Or do you have regulatory compliance requirements that make you dread an upcoming audit? An MSP is well-equipped to monitor your environment for malware or brute force attacks, help you determine your DR strategy, and prepare for audits.
For example, qualified MSPs can assess a healthcare clinic’s infrastructure to determine data security vulnerabilities, as well as help implement whatever steps need to be taken to remain HIPAA compliant. MSPs can also keep you abreast of any recent widespread security threats (such as CryptoWall, CryptoLocker, and the Heartbleed bug) as well as how to prevent (or address) them if your business is vulnerable.
An MSP will advise you as to what you need to do to cross your T’s and dot your I’s – and the fee they charge for their business IT services will be significantly less than the hefty penalties you would have to pay if you experience a data breach or loss.
An MSP can also provide you with a data center that you could never afford to invest in (and maintain) yourself. A fully secure and redundant data center can provide dependable connectivity, power, and cooling to your backup servers, as well as become the primary, secondary, or even tertiary site for data storage and backups, replication, and disaster recovery operations. To better understand the kind of peace of mind - and cost savings - that an MSP's data center can provide you, take a tour of one of our own data center facilities:
3. An MSP will help you focus on what you’re good at, which in turn keeps your company competitive even when on a tight budget.
How many times have you found yourself stressing over an IT problem that you don’t even understand completely? Or spending hours of precious time trying to manage a technological function that is outside your area of expertise?
Having an MSP manage the day-to-day operations allows you to keep your IT running smoothly and silently in the background, while your core business goals remain in the forefront. Your resources can be poured into your primary initiatives and projects, rather than being siphoned off to address some pressing IT issues that you can’t ignore.
And your productivity will skyrocket because you’re not worrying about whether simple but necessary tools will work: “Will my phones and video conferencing function properly all the time?” or “Can I securely access my email, calendar, and contacts on my phone when I’m away from the office?” An MSP can shoulder the responsibility for each of those services and liberate you to excel at your core capabilities – you know, all those things that got you your job in the first place!
With managed services, small-to-midsize businesses can now afford to leverage cutting-edge, enterprise-level technologies at a fraction of the cost (or at a marginally reduced price). That means you have the ability to compete and stay relevant in a market dominated by giant corporations and consumers’ desire. Your clients will certainly thank you for it.
If your business IT is becoming something you can no longer handle in-house, take a look at TekLinks’ broad portfolio of managed services and hosted cloud offerings.
Then call us at 877.301.3125 or email info@teklinks.com to find out how TekLinks can make your technology work for you.
