Choosing a managed IT services firm to handle your business’s IT is the right choice for many businesses.
Here are our top 5 reasons why.
Here’s the bottom line: unless you are a managed IT services firm, your core competency isn’t IT services. It’s something else. Every resource you devote in-house to IT services is a resource you’re not devoting to what makes you unique and competitive.
Even if you have a highly skilled in-house IT department, keeping all your IT services in-house can destroy your focus. Are your managers or even C-level officers regularly devoting time to IT-related concerns? Offloading your IT services to a managed IT services provider doesn’t completely eliminate the need for oversight, of course, but it does reduce the day-to-day involvement that comes with managing IT in-house.
If you work at or lead an SMB, offloading your IT services to a managed services firm connects you to a larger team with a wider depth of experience than you could ever hire in-house. You can only have so many in-house IT personnel, and as an SMB your company won’t reach the breadth or depth of a firm that focuses solely on providing managed IT services.
Using managed IT services is the way to expand your capability and do more with IT, faster and better than you could on your own. You’ll have access to providers who hold the latest certifications and who are skilled enough to work for a firm with this kind of sole focus.
There’s a reason the relationship between the CFO and the CIO is often strained. IT budgets can be unwieldy, even chaotic. The costs of planned equipment replacement can be budgeted for, but surprise failures of costly IT equipment can lead to budget headaches. The costs for any service that’s beyond your in-house IT team’s ability can be extravagant, too.
With managed IT services, you can get control of these costs. Most managed service providers offer a set monthly rate, allowing you to better plan and budget. This monthly rate covers the typical repair and maintenance needs businesses encounter. By and large, you’ll no longer have to call in those expensive specialists, because you now have access to them through your managed service provider.
A good managed IT services firm can help you normalize your IT spend in a few other ways, too. They can help you create an equipment replacement plan (if you don’t have one). They can also recommend cloud- or subscription-based software solutions that will eliminate those pesky software upgrade spikes every time a new version rolls along.
Whatever your business, you have some forms of IT or privacy compliance that likely keep you up at night. Some industries, such as health care, have specific, government-mandated privacy and security procedures, such as HIPAA. All companies with a web presence and users in Europe are now subject to GPDR. Financial firms have their own sets of regulations.
Here’s a blunt question: if you still have an entirely in-house IT team, how deeply do you trust them to keep you compliant? Are they keeping up on the latest developments in security and compliance? If you’re an SMB, your IT folks are probably too busy troubleshooting workstations to keep up like they need to. Unless you have the resources to devote an entire department to security and compliance, you’re better off relying on outside experts to serve this critical function.
Along the lines of the previous point: how well do you trust your in-house IT team’s security capabilities? Do you have the resources to devote an entire team to network and data security, or are the same few people that cover everything else trying to cover this, too? It’s not uncommon for hackers to go after SMBs as the low-hanging fruit: sure, the payoff of breaching Microsoft is higher, but doing so is astronomically more difficult. Hacking a business with 50 to 100 employees that’s trying to handle its own security is likely pretty easy.
A good managed IT services firm employs professionals who stay on the cutting edge of network and data security. They can implement strategies to keep you safer.
For all these reasons, choosing managed IT services is the right choice for your business. If you’re ready to begin the conversation about switching, contact us today.
More than 33 billion records will be stolen by cybercriminals by 2023, an increase of 175% from 2018.
The cost of cybercrime is predicted to hit $10.5 trillion by 2025, according to the latest version of the Cisco/Cybersecurity Ventures “2022 Cybersecurity Almanac.”.
40% of businesses will incorporate the anywhere operations model to accommodate the physical and digital experiences of both customers and employees (Techvera).
The average cost of a data breach in the United States is $8.64 million, which is the highest in the world, while the most expensive sector for data breach costs is the healthcare industry, with an average of $7.13 million (IBM).
It takes an average of 287 days for security teams to identify and contain a data breach, according to the “Cost of a Data Breach 2021” report released by IBM and Ponemon Institute.
The three sectors with the biggest spending on cybersecurity are banking, manufacturing, and the central/federal government, accounting for 30% of overall spending (IDC).
The internal team was energized. With the Level 1 work off its plate, the team turned its attention to the work that fueled company growth and gave them job satisfaction.
Forty-three percent of attacks are aimed at SMBs, but only 14% are prepared to defend themselves (Accenture).
We did a proof of concept that met every requirement that our customer might have. In fact, we saw a substantial improvement.
We did everything that we needed to do, financially speaking. We got our invoices out to customers, we deposited checks, all the things we needed to do to keep our business running, and our customers had no idea about the tragedy. It didn’t impact them at all.
“We believe our success is due to the strength of our team, the breadth of our services, our flexibility in responding to clients, and our focus on strategic support.”