Understanding Why Managed Services Work

It may help to look at managed services a lot like how you’d look at any other outsourced services provider external to your business, fulfills some business needs you to have. However, this service goes a little more in-depth than many you may be more familiar with. An MSP (or managed services provider) will supplement your existing technology management, reducing the responsibilities you have to maintain them (oh, and the costs of doing so as well).

While this might not sound like much at first, it can greatly cut down on the time and resources that any one of your given tasks can require. Let’s assume that your IT technicians spend about 45 minutes each day on maintaining your servers, and again, that’s maintenance. An issue could make this process take much longer.

So, each week your techs are spending three hours and forty-five minutes on mere maintenance. What else could be accomplished during the time dedicated to this maintenance? Now, think about how that time increases every time an issue is discovered, and all the time that is spent resolving these issues after the fact.

It all adds up pretty quickly.
However, adopting managed services can help relieve your in-house staff of these responsibilities. This could allow them to devote more time to improving your business’ technology, or supporting your other internal staff, or any other goal that would benefit your operations more than playing Whack-a-Mole with IT issues ever would. Can you confidently say they have the time to accomplish all this now?

What If You Don’t Have Internal IT Resources on Staff?

If you don’t have internal IT resources, outsourcing your IT needs to a managed services provider has even greater benefits. Take, for example, the reduced financial obligation. While there are many benefits to maintaining a small business, the typically limited size of the budget isn’t one of them. These limitations may mean that you have fewer qualified in-house IT technicians, meaning that some of the IT maintenance and support falls to your other employees -- likely IT novices. This is just too risky to enact, as improperly configured or maintained solutions could (and likely will) contribute to major issues with downtime.

Managed services help to make your solutions more predictable, without the need to manage and maintain them internally. To find out more things that Coleman Technologies can do as an MSP, give us a call at (604) 513-9428.

Breaking Down Managed Service Providers (Also Known As MSPs)
First, our title throws a lot of people. What are managed services, and why do you need a provider at all?

In a lot of ways, we’re just like the internal IT team that you may or may not have. We look over and manage your technology solutions as a part of the service we provide.

Again, just a part.

Yes, part of our role is that of a remote monitoring service, but we can provide much more than that. We can advise you on your technology solutions, assist you in procuring and maintaining them, help you implement technologies like cloud computing, help keep your data secure and your solutions compliant to industry requirements, and a lot more than just that.

We Won’t Replace In-House Staff (Or Vice Versa)
When they learn the extent of what we do, many business owners (and eventually, their staff) may start to wonder if they can outsource all of their IT responsibilities to us, essentially eliminating the need for an internal IT resource. While we appreciate the confidence, we wouldn’t recommend that, unless you don’t currently have an IT resource.

The truth is, we work as well in tandem with an organization’s IT staff as we do as a standalone management solution.

Most internal teams or resources face the same problem: an overwhelming workload. Between day-to-day problem mitigation, managing your current technology, and planning for your business’ future strategy, there isn’t enough time for them to do everything that they have to… and that’s where we come in. Our job is to pick up the slack, wherever it may be, so that all responsibilities are attended to.

However, if you don’t currently have an in-house resource and have been entirely relying on the services of break/fix by-the-incident providers, we can replace those, adding much more value than you could expect otherwise.

We Can Handle Most Anything You Throw At Us
Finally, you might be hesitant to reach out to us because you’re anticipating that your particular industry has needs that we just couldn’t keep up with. Compliances and minutely specialized solutions may be a key factor to your success, and you don’t want to risk it all on the expertise of an outside source.

We have one thing to say to that:

Try us.

It is our job to assist businesses with their solutions. This means that, as these solutions evolve and develop, we have to continually educate ourselves. How does this problem need to be handled? Is there a better option that we should learn more about?

As a result, we’re pretty up-to-date on most things IT.

To discuss your particular needs further, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428, or read some of our other blogs to learn more about how we can help you.