Managed IT Services involves outsourcing daily management tasks and functions as a tactical strategy for optimizing operations and reducing operational costs.
Managed IT Services in Washington, DC allows your internal IT staff to focus on higher-value projects rather than routine tasks and maintenance. Managed IT Services are typically implemented as a long-term strategy coupled with a service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees certain uptime percentages, server performance, licensing compliance, etc.
In a nutshell, managed IT Services is a term used to describe various services, such as network support, network management, and technical help desk. These services are provided by an outside company that specializes in them. The company’s IT department does not handle these tasks on its own.
Managed Service Provider (MSP) and Type of Services Offered
A managed service provider (MSP) is a company that remotely manages a customer’s IT infrastructure and/or end-user systems. Typically, an MSP will act as an organization’s external IT department, managing hardware, software, and other technology-related tasks such as monitoring, helpdesk support, and security.
Actually, small and medium businesses (SMBs) are turning to MSPs for a range of services, including:
- Help Desk Support: 24/7 monitoring and troubleshooting for PCs, servers, networks, mobile devices
- Cloud Computing: Backup as a service (BaaS), hosted email and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
- Virtualization: Server virtualization, desktop virtualization, or application virtualization
- Storage: Onsite SAN (storage area network), NAS (network-attached storage), or cloud storage
- Network Management: Network monitoring and management of your LAN/WAN (local area network/wide area network)
To find the best MSP, make sure you get references from existing clients. Ask their customers about their experiences with the MSP. How responsive are they when there are service issues? How knowledgeable are they? Do they really go above and beyond? You may even want to ask if the MSP has ever saved them significant time or money
What to Expect from Managed IT Services
Managed IT Services come with many benefits. Businesses that work with a Managed Service Provider find that they can focus on growing their business rather than finding the right technology to stay competitive. When you let your MSP take care of your technology needs, you have access to;
- Reduce or eliminate staffing costs associated with maintaining an in-house information technology staff.
- Cut or eliminate infrastructure costs needed for maintaining in-house servers and other information technology equipment.
- Reduce licensing costs by moving to cloud-based software solutions.
- Provide access to a more complete set of information technology capabilities, especially those that may not be within the budget or scope of a small business’s current resources (such as enterprise resource planning systems).
- Reduced operating costs: Outsourcing your technology support reduces the need for a large, in-house IT department
- Easy budgeting: Most Managed Service Providers offer service plans that allow you to pay one monthly fee for all your needs
- Access to talent: When you work with an MSP, you get access to a whole team of trained professionals who are always ready to respond when something goes wrong
- Less downtime: If a server crashes or if there’s another kind of emergency, your MSP can get everything up and running again quickly.
Increased Productivity-Having a reliable IT system is essential for any business that wants to grow and expand. But when your system isn’t working properly, it can bring everything else to a halt. With managed services, you can be confident that your systems will be monitored 24/7 so that if any issues do arise, they can be quickly dealt with before they cause any real problems for your business.
Essentially, the Managed Service Provider (MSP) can be a key partner in the effort to maintain your IT infrastructure. An MSP is an outsourced vendor that monitors and manages your network and IT systems. In many ways, they are like a virtual Chief Information Officer (CIO) for their clients.
What to Look for in the Best MSP Provider
Many businesses are taking advantage of managed services, but what does that mean? When you outsource IT, you can take advantage of provider expertise and systems to support your business needs.
Managed services allow businesses to focus on their core competencies. Typically, Managed Services is easier to budget for and offers more security than other solutions.
Here are the features that define a good MSP provider;
Professional experience
But there are some aspects of managed IT services that you need to think about before you decide to go for them. The first thing is to find out what kind of professional experience the company has. After all, this kind of service involves a lot of different methods and techniques and unless the people handling your requirements have experience with such methods, you might end up causing more damage than good.
Flexibility
Also, it’s important to consider how much flexibility you are going to get from the professionals who will be handling your account. The whole idea behind managed IT services is that the company should be able to handle all your requirements from A-Z without having you get involved in any way at all. This means that they should deal with any issues as soon as they arise without waiting for you or your employees to fix them.
A Proactive Approach
The best Managed IT services providers don’t wait for things to break before taking action. Instead, they monitor your systems 24/7 and initiate fixes before anything goes wrong. This proactive approach saves you from costly downtime.
Finally, the use of managed IT services has become a lot more widespread in the last few years than it was earlier. This is mainly because companies realize that they can save a lot of money using these services. And with the recession still looming large over the world, it is only natural that they would want to cut down costs wherever they can.
And whether or not you employ an MSP is a business decision based upon a number of factors, including the size of your organization, the complexity of your IT infrastructure, and the number of employees with IT expertise on staff. If you decide to go forward with employing an MSP, it is important to select the right one for your business needs.