Have you ever heard of managed IT services, which are essentially IT outsourcing? Truth be told, IT outsourcing only scratches the surface of what a managed IT services program or team can do for a business.
At its foundation, managed IT services are the transfer of your business’ IT functions to another organization that will provide service and support for your employees, systems, applications, and infrastructure, typically for a monthly fee.
Because IT is critical, outsourcing your managed IT services might not always be a simple business-vendor relationship.
When you decide to outsource your IT, you invest in a partnership built on mutual respect and trust. It’s similar to a relationship two friends might share. Your friends should rely on you as much as you rely on them.
Thousands of managed IT services providers are offering their perspectives on IT support and solutions and how they can keep business operations running smoothly.
There’s one common thread though: the types of services businesses could utilize from these providers. Some of these services include:
- Remote and onsite support of desktop software, printing, and networking
- Remote monitoring and management of software patches
- Backup of the network and files
- Disaster Recovery
- Vendor management
- Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO)
- Malware protection
- Security management
- Professional services
Typically, these service offerings are defined slightly differently depending on which managed IT services provider you contact. However, these technology services are the bare minimum that any managed IT company should offer.
How Can Managed IT Services Help Your Business?
“How do I know these services will help my business grow?”
“Is outsourcing my IT just a waste of my money?”
We often hear these questions, as other managed IT providers probably do. The challenge usually lies in the business owner or decision maker’s inability to see the value in outsourcing their IT, meaning they have no interest in spending the money.
Benefits of Managed IT Services
There’s a never-ending list of benefits to outsourcing your IT needs, and you can read more about those here. Below are a few reasons we think will stick out to you the most:
1. Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO)
We briefly discussed a vCIO and the monitoring capabilities of outsourcing a position like this earlier. One of the most significant benefits of managed IT services is access to a Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO).
A vCIO can provide your business with a wealth of knowledge and experience to solve a variety of IT challenges your company might currently be facing. These challenges could include planning and implementing a new CRM (customer relationship manager), ERP (enterprise resource planning) tools, or other business applications.
2. Resource and Business Planning
Another great benefit of managed IT services is the ability to have a strong resource and business planning foundation, such as creating a technology roadmap and budget.
Strategic planning ensures your business continues to grow, by keeping up with newer trends and advanced technology that’s to come. Building a technology roadmap takes time, but the payback far exceeds the effort or cost.
3. Cost Savings
You probably don’t consider a regular monthly cost an advantage of managed IT services. However, hear us out. The benefits to your business may surprise you.
There are so many different IT services and features you can choose for your business, and let’s be honest, what’s better than having options? You get to decide where you’re investing your business dollars.
Maybe you’re interested in network monitoring and storage capacity and could do without specific software updates. That’s up to you to decide!
You control the IT services you pay for each month, depending on your business's work and specific IT needs.
Don’t forget that outsourcing your IT lets you tap into experts in their field and reduces the labor and benefit costs that you would associate with building your own internal IT department.
4. Managed IT is a Time Saver
Are you a business owner or even an employee whose function isn’t IT, but you spend much of your day fixing IT issues for yourself and other employees? If you answered, “Yes,” managed IT services are probably precisely what you need. More times than not, anything IT-related is time-consuming.
An excellent managed IT services team allows business owners and employees to focus on the business and their duties rather than IT functions. Managed IT services give you that time back you could use throughout your busy days.
Speaking of your busy days, what takes up a lot of time? Troubleshooting, common or complex. IT glitches and malfunctions that continuously tend to come up, such as patchy wireless network connections, ineffective virus software, or storage issues within cloud computing, only distract you from completing your daily tasks.
How To Find a Qualified Managed IT Services Team
We understand that you’ve probably had some issues finding a qualified and knowledgeable managed IT services company. Unfortunately, many companies say they offer IT outsourcing, but once the layers are pulled back, they don’t.
So how do you separate the good from the bad? It’s a process:
1. Do some searching online. A Google search for managed IT services yields over 600 million results and doesn’t tell you if those companies are good. So, that’s when you turn to reviews on their business page or website.
2. Word of mouth is a great way to find a great IT team. Talking to other companies similar to yours or ones located nearby is a great resource to use in collaboration with Google, Yelp, or even AI platforms.
3. Ask your current vendors for recommendations on a great service provider they may have used or are currently using.
Like an interview between you and a potential employee, you should structure a managed IT team similarly. You should bring in more than one managed IT services team so you have options, and can easily compare what you want and what you don’t want.
Once you’ve narrowed your options, dig a little deeper into the company and its staff. It’s essential to:
- Ask for references and see what their reputation is.
- Ask how long the company has been in business for.
- Ask what services are covered within the contract or service level agreement, and what isn’t.
Remember, you can’t just think of your managed IT services team as an “IT Guy.” Managed IT services provide far more value than someone who fixes your computer.
At AIS, we strive to educate and inform you on the best ways your business can get the most out of a managed IT services provider. If you want to learn more about managed IT services, or still have questions, we’re here to answer them! Reach out to one of our business technology consultants here.
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