When a company decides to get managed IT support, that can be a huge time saver for on-site IT staff, freeing them up to develop IT functions connected to the core business effort.
The choice to opt for a managed IT support service can be especially helpful when it’s time to scale your company. Business growth, especially if it’s fast, always creates more work than your on-site staff can handle. At times like that, it makes sense to outsource the areas of your business that are not your core expertise.
Here we discuss the advantages of using managed IT support, compared to letting your in-house staff run all IT support activities:
More control over your IT expenditure
Companies that specialize in providing managed IT services usually offer customized solutions to their clients. That means you can pay for a package of services that covers exactly what you need, instead of paying for a team of full-time on-site employees, whose skills may only be needed part of the time.
This also means it’s easy to scale a managed service up or down, rather than having to hire or fire on-site employees. The cost savings can be tremendous because of this adjustability.
Rapid deployment of new solutions
If you set up a new IT system, it can take months for your on-site staff to research and learn how to work with it, while carrying out their other tasks. A managed service provider, on the other hand, is always prepared to deploy a new system in the fastest time possible.
It might be necessary to temporarily increase the size of the remote team managing your IT services, but the results are much faster than with a local team.
Objective third-party evaluation of your IT system
Your on-site IT staff may not have enough qualifications and experience to fully evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your IT system. Bringing in a team of outside experts can be extremely beneficial because they will give you an unbiased view of the health and functionality of your IT resources.
In addition, third-party specialists can help to educate your on-site staff how to improve management of your IT system, and what the best practices are to keep it running effectively and safe from malicious attacks.
Instant availability of trained IT experts
Recruiting and training IT specialists is a lengthy and expensive process. Quality IT specialists are highly sought after on the market, which makes them costly and hard to find. If you choose to go with more junior staff, or even with fresh graduates, they are unlikely to have the necessary experience to deal with complex issues in your IT system.
A managed service provider, however, can give you instant access to highly trained and experienced specialists. The core business of IT service providers is to hire the best talent and invest in their continuous training. You’ll get the benefit of their skills without having to shoulder the associated costs of recruitment efforts.
Access to top-notch security
Keeping an enterprise IT system safe from hackers and data breaches is a huge challenge in the modern IT landscape. As IT systems become more complex, hackers find more and more weaknesses that can be exploited.
Setting up an IT system with a high level of security takes time. The system has to be repeatedly scanned for weaknesses and potential vulnerabilities, which then have to be corrected. And, this process has to be repeated regularly, as both IT systems and their threats are constantly evolving.
Often your on-site IT staff members don’t have enough time for these tasks, as they are busy running the IT activities necessary for your core business. That’s why it’s a great idea to bring in outside experts to handle your security. They can safeguard your IT system while you focus on growing your business.
No staff shortages
If your IT staff is stretched to the limits with their daily tasks, and one of them gets sick, your on-site team won’t be able to cover for them. A provider of managed IT support, however, can easily rotate in another staff member to cover for a sick colleague.
That means you will never have bottlenecks due to a lack of IT staff. If there is an IT related problem, a managed service provider always has experts on-call.
Less network downtime
If there are problems with your IT system that your on-site staff can’t handle, this can result in network downtime, which costs your business a lot of money since it prevents almost all jobs from being carried out.
By investing in a managed IT support service, you can ensure that your system is always kept up to date, secure, and smoothly running. This results in a lot fewer downtimes, and thus increases the productivity of your business.