Now more than ever, businesses rely on technology to operate. If your technology isn’t working, it’s likely that your employees won’t be able to work either. This is why it’s so critical that businesses have experienced IT personnel on hand who can manage their technology and provide support as needed.
Yet, for many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), having an in-house IT team can be cost-prohibitive. Even hiring an IT manager can be expensive and may not provide sufficient IT support. This is why many SMBs are choosing to outsource their IT needs to a managed service provider (MSP).
The big question you may find yourself asking is whether an Managed Service Provider is right for every business. Partnering with a managed service company can help provide SMBs with IT services they would not otherwise have had access to. Keep reading to learn about the pros and cons of working with an MSP and how you will know if outsourcing IT services is right for your business. Ultimately, whether a business should consider outsourcing IT tasks to an MSP depends on various factors.
A medium-sized company with a fleshed-out IT department may find partnering with an outsourced IT provider to be unnecessary and cost prohibitive. However, for small businesses that cannot afford in-house IT staff, outsourcing some or all of their IT needs may provide an ideal solution. In these cases, partnering with an MSP allows companies to focus on their core business strategy, as they can feel confident knowing that their IT needs are being handled.
Yet, how will you know if managed IT services are right for your company? To help you make this decision, keep reading for a look at the pros and cons of outsourcing your IT needs to a managed service provider.
One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your company’s IT needs is that it can help you significantly reduce operational costs. When you partner with an MSP, you eliminate the costs associated with buying new hardware and software, training IT staff, paying the salaries of in-house IT professionals, and other expenses. You will simply have to pay the MSP for the services you need, as you need them.
>Another significant advantage of outsourcing IT is that many MSPs offer 24/7 support. The fact is that IT emergencies often don’t abide by a 9-5 schedule, and you may face an IT emergency in the middle of the night when your in-house team would be asleep.
However, if your servers are hacked or your website goes down in the middle of the night and your IT staff is unavailable, this could prove costly. By working with a managed service provider, you can have peace of mind knowing that remote support is just a phone call away at all hours.
If your business is in a constant state of growth, you may find that you need help keeping up with your company’s IT needs. If your company is growing quicker than you can hire IT staff, outsourcing may provide a simple alternative as scaling your IT services is as simple as making a call.
As your IT needs grow, working with an MSP will also make technology spending easier to predict, as pricing is often based per endpoint or user. Outsourcing IT will then better allow you to predict and control growing IT expenses.
Small businesses with minimal IT resources often act on a reactionary basis by responding to issues as they occur. However, working in this way can cause numerous problems and negatively impact business.
Alternatively, when you partner with an MSP, your IT team will work proactively to prevent issues from occurring. They constantly monitor hardware, applications, security, and technology trends. Your service provider will work to keep your business from having issues in the first place, ensuring you can operate at peak efficiency.
Working with an MSP will also provide you with tech expertise you likely wouldn’t have had access to, as replicating the resources an MSP has would be very expensive. The fact is that most small businesses are only able to afford to hire one or two in-house IT personnel.
To replicate the services an MSP can provide, they would need a dedicated cybersecurity specialist, multiple network administrators, a professional services team, cloud services and a help desk. When you partner with an MSP, you will have access to personnel with the right expertise to handle any issue you may face.
Of course, one of the biggest downsides of working with an MSP is that you will not have any IT personnel on-site. In fact, your service provider may not even be local to your business.
This means that any issues you encounter with your hardware that can’t be fixed remotely will have to be dealt with by you and your staff. When searching for an MSP, it is then important that you find out where they are located and whether they offer on-site support.
When you staff an in-house IT team, you have the power to research the background and experience of each employee you bring in, ensuring that you have the best IT team possible. Unfortunately, not every MSP is the same, and there can be massive variations in quality and responsiveness from one MSP to the next. This makes it critical that you take the time to research any MSP you are considering working with in order to ensure that they have the experience and service quality you need.
By partnering with an MSP, you lose the benefits that come with having a dedicated IT team that knows the ins and outs of your business. The fact is that your MSP might not be familiar with the peculiarities and nuances of your business’s needs, as they offer generalized services. This lack of insider knowledge can potentially lower the efficiency of the services an MSP provides.
Ultimately, you will have to decide whether outsourcing your company’s IT needs to a managed service provider is the right decision. For many businesses, outsourcing IT can help them to save money while giving them access to a wider range of IT services. Some companies even use an MSP to provide supplemental IT services while maintaining their in-house team. Regardless of your company’s size or IT needs, an MSP like Valeo Networks can help you accomplish your goals. Feel free to contact us to learn more about the benefits of partnering with a managed IT service provider.