Employing managed IT Services is a commonly used support strategy designed to bring expert knowledge, practical resources, and decades of experience into your organization at a reduced cost and timeframe. Employed for a wide variety of reasons, including intelligent cost management and swift IT improvements, the practical benefits also include shorter turnaround time for common solutions, lower overall IT costs, importing dedicated subject knowledge, and shifting internal resources to more focused business operations.
The relationship between an organization and its managed IT consulting partner is every bit as crucial as its relationship between sales, finance, and operations. IT is at the heart of almost every aspect of a modern firm. Keeping on top of consistently evolving issues and threats is key to ensuring your organization continues running smoothly and without interruption.
Managed IT services providers commonly provide numerous critical functions and services, which include:
- Hardware support and ongoing maintenance
- Data backup and recovery
- Data storage, warehousing, and management
- Software support and maintenance
- Network monitoring, maintenance, and security
Managed IT vs Other IT Relationships
Whether considering employing solely in-house IT specialists or seeking out a break-fix contract to solve problems as they appear, a managed IT solution can combine the best of both to maximize cost efficiency and overall success.
Break-fix relationships are particularly guilty of generating additional and more complex issues further down the line. On paper, the idea makes financial sense: only fixing IT issues as they arise and begin creating problems for the organization. ‘Just-in-time’ fixes mean your IT costs appear low—although wildly variable—as long as your IT is in good health.
The disadvantage to the break-fix model of IT is primarily related to the long-term costs and associated risks taken on without addressing IT issues as they occur. Unmonitored hardware, left to fail before being maintained or replaced, has the potential to lose data and impact related systems. The cost of this type of failure goes far beyond simple hardware or even systems replacement.
Left untreated, small IT issues often evolve into major ones. Without regular updates and security patches, IT breakages and security breaches become increasingly more likely to happen and increasingly more devastating when they do.
Also Read: What is Managed Services Providers
A Long-Term Stable Solution
Managed IT services providers work to gain a deeper understanding and thorough knowledge of the systems in place within your firm. This familiarity gives managed IT consulting the edge when it comes to responding to and diagnosing issues which appear unexpectedly. A thorough knowledge of upstream and downstream components means each solution has a better chance of effectively sticking without side effects too.
Often, one of the great advantages to managed IT services is their ability to solve IT problems before they develop into issues. Using diagnostic data from various components such as hard drives, network switches, and systems data allows engineers to spot potential troubles before they cause failures or catastrophic data loss.
Taking responsibility for your exact systems and security is the role which managed IT services providers undertake for your organization. By maintaining up-to-date systems and security, providers get out ahead of potential problems and future security threats that could compromise data.
Best of All Worlds
The advantages held over in-house IT lies in the years of dedicated experience and expertise that comes with a known service provider. Firms that provide IT solutions to their clients have the opportunity to dedicate 100% of their time and resources to finding, fixing, learning, and solving IT problems.
A firm that specializes in managed IT consulting has a depth of knowledge and practical experience that in-house staff can rarely hope to match. The end result for your organization is faster, more thorough, and more complete solutions to meet IT demands. Reducing overhead costs of in-house IT staff comes as an added benefit too. Managed services means only paying for IT solutions, not staffing, human resources, and associated costs on top.
As a complete IT solution in a single low-cost package, there are few options as simple and appealing to bring smart strategy and dedicated expertise into your firm.
