Managed IT Services: An Overview
A managed IT services provider is a third-party vendor or service provider that takes care of the end-to-end management of your infrastructure. This IT services provider takes responsibility for the comprehensive management of a company’s entire infrastructure and/or delivers a set of technical services to its clients. In such an arrangement, the managed service provider takes ownership of managing all the functionality of service or equipment at a company and is responsible for maintaining optimal performance for the duration of the contract under an agreed-upon Service Level Agreement (SLA).
These kinds of managed services are generally available to companies for monthly or yearly subscription fees. Companies are free to choose from a range of boutique services or opt for comprehensive infrastructure management services that lets them fully outsource all responsibilities regarding the maintenance and evolution of a wide suite of core processes and functions. Outsourcing specific functions or comprehensive infrastructure management often results in better operational efficiencies, significantly reduced expenses and more agility and scalability in the organisation that enables it to grow leaner. For the most experienced Managed Services Company in your locality, please contact Managed IT services Lafayette.
Top 7 Benefits of Managed Services
Laser focus on core objectives
Companies experiencing rapid growth often also need to face increasing complexities in their infrastructure. This is especially true for companies that are trying to transition from legacy applications and equipment and usher in digital transformation. Legacy equipment and their more modern counterparts often don’t play well with each other resulting in even more technical complexities and even information silos in the organization. Rapid growth is also accompanied by increased workloads, both of which can ultimately overwhelm your employees. Unsurprisingly, this can end up drawing focus from core business objectives and bog down your employees in a mesh of routine and fairly unproductive work. In order for companies to scale as per business needs, it is often advisable for companies to outsource routine jobs and tasks that they can’t easily find the right skill sets for. This significantly reduces the burden on your employees as they can finally focus on the jobs that they were hired to do and solve higher level business and technical problems. A flexible service model from a reputed managed services provider also allows companies to decide on the exact level of support required as per their current needs. This means that you don’t need to over-pay just to ‘keep the lights on’ during leaner months, or get overwhelmed during demanding seasons.
On-demand expertise
In order to stay competitive, companies often need to invest in new technologies. But their current employees may not have the requisite skills sets to deal with these technologies. Companies also often lack the requisite support that they need to fully implement new business solutions. All of these problems can be addressed more cost-efficiently by MSPs when compared to the cost and effort involved in training new hires, especially with the current talent crunch. Moreover, with MSPs you are guaranteed to have the necessary expertise (that new hires may lack in) from a roster of highly experienced technical, functional, architectural, and training experts. You can also add or remove specialists as required depending on your current needs. If you’re looking for Managed Services Provider Companies for local businesses, please consider reaching out to IT Support Lafayette.
Significantly reduced costs
This is perhaps the most touted benefit of engaging the services of a managed service provider. MSPs can help companies dramatically reduce costs across the board from labor costs, recruitment, hiring and training costs, equipment maintenance and repair costs, and even provide incredible value in terms of finding the best deals when it comes to upgrading hardware and software. They also make niche skills available to companies on a scalable basis, often also including a combination of onshore and offshore resources. This enables companies to leverage even more cost efficiencies while widening the resource base. With service-level agreements in place, companies never need to worry about unexpected service costs. All of this can be combined to drive an organisation from a capital expense model to an operating expense model.
Scale up or Down as Needed
Given the uncertain market conditions that most companies operate in, they need a flexible infrastructure that can be scaled up or down as per market demands. This is where MSPs truly shine as they design your infrastructure to respond to demand changes in real-time while avoiding downtimes. A reputed MSP will also provide advanced services such as 24*7*365 proactive monitoring, upgraded services release management, detailed reporting, and more.
Avoid downtimes and associated costs
On average, a single network downtime can end up costing companies as much as $5,600 per minute. Downtimes can cause a significant dent in a company’s financial health as well as productivity. With the right MSP partner on board, companies are guaranteed a more proactive approach towards maintenance. MSPs try to resolve issues before they can snowball into problems using remote monitoring and management tools to detect, diagnose, and troubleshoot potential issues. And the costs of maintaining an MSP is a pittance compared to taking the risks of downtimes. Moreover, companies get the peace of mind that when things go really wrong, reputed MSPs like IT consulting New Orleans can ensure system resilience and business continuity through extensive backup and disaster recovery services. To put it in simple terms, you could be experiencing an earthquake but your customers will never know about it.