If your business’s IT department is struggling to keep up with business requests while also maintaining infrastructure needs like security, compliance, or other needs to keep your business humming, then reviewing the benefits of managed services can help you decide if taking the leap will help you reach your business goals.

According to CompTIA’s 2016 Buying Guide for Managed Services, 64 percent of organizations are using some form of managed services, and that number has only grown and continues to increase.

The benefits of managed services provider are numerous, but we wanted to share five top benefits of managed services that we hear most often from our customer feedback. Engaging a managed services provider is increasingly common and often makes the most business sense when your organization simply doesn’t want to be or can’t be the expert in certain technology services. Hiring the experts can generate a higher quality service level and better overall operations.

1. Gain access to a team of certified experienced IT experts

In today’s ever-changing technology world, needs fluctuate. It’s often not cost-effective for small and mid-sized businesses to staff an entire IT department of experts in each particular service. For example, a mid-sized business that does minimal development work on their website for most of the year might not need a full-time developer on their staff. The same can be said for a small business that processes card payments online but doesn’t need to staff a full-time IT security expert.

A benefit of managed services is that the provider supports your in-house IT team (or lack thereof), so there’s no need to keep full-time resources where there simply isn’t full-time work. The managed services provider fills the gaps left on your IT team when you need the services.

2. It’s cost effective for most businesses
Historically, predictable pricing and manageable costs have been a large benefit of managed services and why many businesses turn to WSM.  Organizations that use a managed services provider end up saving money in the long run not only because they don’t have to employ a full-time employee to fulfill certain tasks, but also because one single provider is managing multiple IT areas, including compliance, security, software, development, network, etc. This provider knows your business needs and you no longer have to keep track of multiple providers.

Part of the benefits of managed services is that you gain access to the latest technologies, infrastructure, and experts in a predictable pricing structure. When the provider already knows your business, it’s easy to engage and the work can be completed quicker, saving your team downtime. If you don’t have an IT team and rely on technology to do business, which is most businesses in today’s marketplace, then engaging a managed services provider can help your business enjoy the performance and capabilities as a large enterprise without the large IT department in a cost-effective way.

3. Proactive maintenance approach
If you’re using the “break-fix” methodology, it might be time to reconsider. Using a reactive methodology creates downtime with your team scrambling to get a fix in place. Businesses that use a managed services provider usually take a more proactive approach to maintenance because the provider can detect and resolve issues before they occur. This could mean conducting regular security scans and remediating vulnerabilities before a hack occurs, or constant monitoring to ensure your environment is always up and running.

4. Free up internal staff to focus on strategic work
Managed services isn’t necessarily a death sentence for an in-house IT department if you have one. In many cases, a benefit of managed services is that it helps your in-house IT staff focus on strategic initiatives instead of maintenance tasks that can be tedious and take up precious time. Engaging a managed services provider helps take the load off your team and allows them to dive into projects that drive growth and revenue for your business: a win-win partnership for your staff.

5. Enhance security

As mentioned in the reason above, internal IT staff can easily be tied up in everyday operations or strategic projects and lack the time or talent it takes to keep infrastructures updated with the latest security. Over half of organizations reported one or more ransomware attacks in 2017.

Because managed services providers usually have a staff of certified experts that are up-to-date on best practices. This is particularly important when it comes to security. A good managed services provider can enhance your business’s security by finding and fixing vulnerabilities that may compromise your environment while minimizing downtime and providing disaster recovery services if something were to happen.

 

Businesses of all sizes see the benefits of managed services when they engage aprovider like WSM to help them accomplish their IT and business goals for the reasons above. We have been providing managed services for over seven years and have found that many businesses enjoy the benefits of managed services noted above and more.

Still not sure if you need to turn to a managed services provider? Ask yourself:

  • Have we spent more time and energy dealing with IT matters than originally planned for?
  • Has your team been able to meet its strategic goals thus far this year?
  • Did your business experience service outages, downtime, or loss of data?

Our pay-as-you-go billing model ensures you pay for the services you use. Cost-effective, rapid, experienced. Find out more about our managed services offerings.