Are you an accountant, a doctor, or a surgeon? What about a lawyer? Maybe you’re the Director of IT who manages IT services in your organization. Or you may run the help desk team. Chances are, whatever your passion, you’re an expert in your field. And, chances are, you think it's important to outsource what you don't know, right?
You might know how to prepare a P&L (profit and loss statement), operate on a child with cancer, or argue your defendant’s case better than anyone in your business. That’s why you decided to start it in the first place, right? You became aware of your talents and abilities and wanted to use them to help others.
Your growth and success help others grow and succeed, which is the founding principle behind being an entrepreneur in the world today. Leveraging your talents to help other businesses or people gives you the chance to improve their lives, as well as your own.
When talking about managed IT services, there are IT professionals in the technology field who feel the same about their passion. Their goal is to share their knowledge and expertise to help your business remain on the path of growth and success.
Never heard of managed IT services? Let us briefly explain!
Managed IT Services is a group of technology services that a Managed Service Provider (MSP) or a third-party provider gives to businesses in information technology (IT). Some of these services include:
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- Remote monitoring and management
- Technical support
- Training
- Data and infrastructure security
- Virus protection
- Cloud computing
- Data backup & disaster recovery plans
- Business continuity
- Technology road mapping & planning
- Virtual CIO
- Help desk
- Network management
- Compliance
Managed IT services are provided to businesses based on their needs via a variety of models. A great provider will have multiple options tailored to suit your needs.
For a more in-depth description of managed IT services, read our article, What are Managed IT Services? How to Tell If You Need Them.
We can safely assume that anyone who attempts or tries to do something they strongly dislike or that they’re simply not good at only detracts from the overall goal. If the passion isn’t there, or you’re just not cut out for something, the challenges for growth become greater.
Therefore, identifying your niche, sticking with it, and knowing the right experts to take over what you can’t, allows you to focus on the specifics of what you’re best at.
Throughout this article, we’ll give you some great tips on the best ways to grow your SMB through outsourcing and the benefits of having a dedicated managed IT services team.
Managed IT Services and Your Industry: Focusing On Tools For Success
You might not think your business needs managed IT or outsourcing services, which is why we can’t stress enough how important it is to understand the benefits of outsourcing, especially for an SMB. You may even have IT problems you’re not even aware of that a managed IT team can identify and resolve.
To further explain the benefits of managed IT services, and how your business can relate, we feel it’s beneficial to give you some real-life examples of how some professions use technology to help them run their business.
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- Attorneys sometimes struggle with time management and organization, which is why they are one of the most common professions requiring an assistant. Collaborative organizational tools, such as Microsoft To-Do and information management systems like Confluence, help you and your assistant keep tabs on all the tasks and data that you need to take excellent care of your clients.
- A medical professional or doctor has one main focus: caring for their patients. However, this can lead to many frustrations with things that take them away from patient care, such as legal compliance, patient charting, and paperwork. To help with these struggles, easy-to-use and low-cost HIPAA (a healthcare compliance) training like HIPAA Secure Now! make getting your staff up to speed on protecting PII (personal identifiable information) and ePHI (electronic protected health information) a breeze.
This software also keeps the paperwork away with digital certifications, while also giving you the option to print them out and frame them to show your patients you’re taking yet another step toward protecting them—not just their health!
To learn more about HIPAA safety through business technology, read our article, HIPAA Compliant Copier: Top 5 Things You Need To Know in 2019.
On top of that, a paperless EHR (Electronic Health Records System)/EMR (Electronic Medical Records System) with digital signature devices or tablets like Dentrix or PracticeFusion can share that document-free lifestyle with your patients too! - For accountants and financial consultants, technology can, unfortunately, be their downfall. Whether it’s an Excel spreadsheet with over 15,000 rows or having 7 different versions of TurboTax open to check a client’s entire history for an audit, it must work.
When quickly switching between tasks is required, it might feel like you need an AI to know when you’re done with something. You don’t have time to shut things down when you finish with them; it’s just too time-consuming.
Conveniently, the Chrome extension add-in The Great Suspender or the program JetBoost, both suspend browser tabs or applications you aren’t using regularly. These extensions can help keep your PC focused on what you need it to do.
(Disclaimer: Tools like JetBoost should never be used on a server – they are designed for workstations only and can cause severe damage to server operations.)
Going Beyond IT Tools: Turn To The Experts
What if tools aren’t enough? Or what if you want to take all your processes to the next level? It might be time to go beyond simple technology and begin looking at outsourcing the key elements of your SMB that will scale with you, allowing you to grow until you can bring them in-house.
If you want the fastest growth, don’t think about today. Think about what your C-Suite will look like and shift your focus to $100 million in revenue. What order would you hire them in? Where do you want to be in that group?
If you’re passionate enough about something to put your financial future on the line by founding a company for it, you want it done right. Many individuals imagine themselves being the CEO of their own company. However, is running the business itself where you’ll be happiest?
It’s possible your real desire is the fulfillment of knowing you and your team are contributing to something more substantial? People like Tom Savage, a social entrepreneur, says one’s who have founded multiple successful businesses, don’t sit in the top seat for long.
Quartz at Work published an article on just this that you might find interesting, We Finally Have Proof That Visionary Founders Make The Worst CEOs.
Final Thoughts: Managed IT Services and Your Business Needs
When it comes to your IT, it’s essential to take a second and ask yourself if your technology needs are being met. Turning to a team of experts who are passionate and well-informed about what they’re doing is one of the best solutions you can create for your business, employees, and customers.
Take a look at one outsourcing role you could utilize that support a healthier and more functional IT department for your business:
Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO): A vCIO manages IT resources and budgets, makes recommendations on the purchasing of equipment, manages IT resources, plans and develops policies, evaluates security, and calculates how to make additional profits using the business's technology.
A vCIO is also responsible for the company’s technology roadmap and ensures the company is staying up to date on system updates and upgrades. A vCIO can be an attractive service offering to any growing business that can’t afford a full-time CIO and only needs one part-time to oversee their IT strategy.
Success in business is about knowing what you don’t know as much as possible. Acknowledge your weaknesses and decide to get someone else in that seat or learn it.
However, if you’re going to learn it, be passionate about it and be willing to love it with the same passion as what got you into business in the first place.
If you’re not bringing that passion to the table, there are plenty of great companies out there to partner with that will. The stakes are always high and getting higher each day. Executive leadership doesn’t mean paying an executive price tag.
For more information on everything to do with Managed IT Services, check out our resource page here.
AIS is a complete technology management and office technology solutions company with dedicated managed IT experts to fill that need for your business, your employees, and your customers. Our main goal is to help you achieve your goals. We strive to provide you the tools, resources, and information about all office technology solutions so you can focus on the growth of your business. If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of managed IT services, how we can help grow your business, or any of the products and services we sell, reach out to one of our business technology consultants here. We’re here to give you peace of mind to help you win more business.
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