Top 9 Benefits of Managed IT Services

Does your business use an outsourced managed IT services provider? If you find it hard to run everything in-house, it's time to outsource. Here are the top benefits of managed IT services.

Is your business growing? Congratulations. What are you doing to scale your IT solutions? Tech solutions make doing business in the modern era easy. Your data gives insight into your business practices, allowing you to make decisions that keep your company and brand moving forward in the digital world.

Your network is one of your company's most valuable assets. It requires active management and maintenance to ensure its effective operation. Most companies assume they can delegate the growth of their IT systems to their in-house IT team, but that's not always the case.

One of the benefits of managed IT services is that you can outsource the scaling of your operations and networks to a third-party team without the need to add to your existing on-site infrastructure. This strategy lets you focus on doing what you do best: growing your business.

A managed IT solution provides professional service and support for your network. This post unpacks the benefits of hiring a managed IT solution for your company. Regardless of the size of your business, a managed solution offers several advantages.

What are managed IT services?

Every company in the modern era relies on tech solutions to help them manage its operations and growth. With the right IT network, you maximize your business efficiency. However, with the costs of hiring employees weighing on business finances, most companies can no longer afford to expand their in-house IT departments.

From corporates to small businesses, the cost of hiring and maintaining an in-house team is thinning margins by the day. Sacrificing the quality or quantity of your network maintenance to accommodate and conserve limited resources is the only option, or is it?

Managed IT services present a strategy to outsource your network maintenance to a team of experts. Outsourcing companies offer several advantages to your business. They cover every aspect of your systems and maintenance, including network administration, data backups, security, communications, support, and more.

Hiring an outsourced partner frees your existing resources to conduct their job description with better efficiency and focus if you have an internal team. Let's unpack nine advantages to hiring a managed IT services partner for your business.

The top 9 benefits of managed IT services

#1 A predictable, low-cost service

The first of many benefits of managed IT services relates to cost-to-company. Hiring new employees is getting more expensive in the inflationary era. Wage inflation affects every employment market sector, including IT specialists. Adding a new employee to the payroll is out of reach for many firms, regardless of the industry.

A managed IT services partner drops your payroll requirement for hiring new staff. If you're a small business, it means you get more bang for your employment buck. Instead of hiring an entire in-house team, you get a partner with all the same resources at a fraction of the cost of an in-house team.

You get a reliable partner at a fixed monthly cost, making your IT expenditure consistent and predictable. With a managed IT partner, you can leverage the entire team's skillset. There's no need to send them expensive training courses to keep them up to date with the latest IT developments, and no need to add costly IT solutions to your network.

#2 A solution that scales with your business growth

Payroll costs are a huge part of company expenses in any business model. It could hamper your growth if you don't have the budget to hire new people. Fortunately, a managed IT services partner scales with your business as it grows. There's no need to continually add people to your payroll. Your managed IT partner scales your solution to meet your needs.

You don't have to waste your money on hiring and training new people to meet the growing demands of your network and processes. With a managed services provider in your corner, you get everything you need without changing your existing service level agreement. The partner has a team capable of handling rapid growth in your business without changing their monthly fee to you.

They absorb the cost of training, and you don't have to worry about your employees leaving you in the lurch because they get better offers from competitors. The managed provider gives you the people, coordination, and equipment to keep your business growing.

#3 Minimal systems downtime

There are myriad problems facing companies regarding their IT solutions. Servers fail, workstations crash, and software glitches. You don't have to worry about these problems with a managed IT services provider. The partner absorbs these issues into their workflow, giving you minimal downtime.

There's no fear of unintentional human error leading to downtime in your network. With a managed IT services provider, you're working with a company with the people and infrastructure to eliminate downtime or keep it to a minimum. They reduce the cost of buying and executing software and hardware solutions, ensuring you always have your systems online.

#4 Preventative maintenance

Most companies adopt the process of fixing things when they break. Investing in preventative maintenance seems prudent, but it's often out of reach of companies due to budget restrictions. As a result, when things go down - you get a mass panic among your IT team.

With a managed IT services partner, you get the advantage of preventative maintenance in your service fee. There's no risk of network damage and data loss placing a dent in your company budget. Your managed services partner assumes a preventive approach, monitoring your systems in real-time.

Depending on the size and scale of your company, a security breach or systems failure could stretch into the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars when you include the legal liability of these issues. With a managed IT services partner, you mitigate these risks from your business.

#5 Immediate support

When things go wrong, and inevitably, they always do at some point, you have someone on hand to sort out the problem. A managed IT services partner is available on call, 24/7. They monitor your systems day and night, give you real-time support, and correct issues before they impact your business.

If you have a network problem outside of office hours, your in-house team isn't on-site to correct the issue. They may be off for the rest of the day, or you might only have a junior IT executive managing the systems at that time, leaving them unable to resolve the issue.

If your systems go down in the dead of night, the junior exec might not have the experience to bring them back online. They might fail to get hold of a senior manager to help them resolve the issue. A managed IT services partner runs teams around the clock.

If anything goes wrong, they have someone on-hand to assist you with handling the issue at any time of the day. You might arrive at work the following day without realizing there was a system problem.

#6 Updated security standards

Cyber threats are becoming an increasingly common occurrence for businesses around the globe. Even the largest players are at risk of cyber attacks. Just think of Colonial Pipeline or SolarWinds hacks to understand the scale of the problem.

A managed IT services provider monitors your network and systems in real-time. They stay ahead of any threats, keeping your business operational and safe from hackers. A managed services provider supports their security protocols up to date, implementing the latest hardware and software solutions to always ensure the integrity of your network and systems.

#7 Latest tech solutions

The tech involved with building and managing your systems is one of the biggest IT-related expenses facing your business. Tech is continually evolving, and you need to keep up with these changes to remain relevant and free from the risk of hackers penetrating outdated legacy systems.

It's frustrating if you spend an arm and a leg on your systems only to find out they're outdated, irrelevant, and present a security risk today. Even worse, you spend money on a new system only to discover your existing team doesn't have the skillset to operate it properly.

Your fee with your managed services provider includes the costs of keeping your systems up to date with the latest technology solutions. There's no need to finance hardware or software and spend your budget training staff to keep them up-to-date with systems operations and management procedures.

#8 Reduced business risk

Along with the costs of keeping up to date with the latest tech solutions, you must worry about the expense of regulatory compliance. The ongoing regulatory requirements from the government and organizations like DSS, PCI, and ISO, to name a few, mean you're always shelling out money to remain compliant with best practices and policies.

A managed IT services partner helps your business mitigate the risk of falling on the wrong side of compliance. There's also the consideration of falling behind on compliance, resulting in a hack that ruins your reputation, leading to huge legal liability that cripples your business finances.

They always keep you in compliance. You get total protection for your data and assets. The proactive approach they use mitigates the risk of being on the wrong side of regulatory compliance, keeping your business in good light with legislation and your clients.

#9 A reliable team of experts

A managed IT services provider gives you peace of mind knowing you're dealing with a professional team. They have the expertise and knowledge to improve the security and functionality of your networks and systems while you get on with business.

Companies with in-house IT teams can benefit by adding a managed services provider to their processes and infrastructure. Providers can assist with the day-to-day operations of IT systems, including tasks like end-user support, cloud computing, data center solutions, asset management, and disaster recovery planning.

What to look for when choosing a managed IT services provider?

Unfortunately, not all managed IT service providers offer the same level of performance for your business. With so many choices, you need to select the partner that's the right fit for your company.

How are managed services useful to your business if you contract the wrong team? You'll end up with a worse problem than what you started with. Consider the following factors when hiring a managed IT solutions partner:

A comprehensive service level agreement

Your service level agreement with your managed IT services partner should fit your business needs. The provider should offer a package tailored to your individual requirements, providing flexible solutions to ensure timely response and complete compliance.

Industry experience

They should have a solid track record of performance and a good reputation in the market. Look at what their clients are saying and their depth in the market. If you're hiring a brand new provider, you cannot be sure they're the right fit for your business.

A commitment to your business growth

Your managed IT services partner should offer you the team and infrastructure you need to continue to scale and grow your systems and business. They should accommodate your growth, not stifle it. Look for companies offering an innovative approach and willingness to tackle any technical or technological challenge you can throw at them.

World-class customer service

Above all, your managed services provider must offer elite-level service. How do they communicate with you? What is their communications protocol for an emergency? Do you have access to the team when you need them in a pinch? These questions matter - and your partner should offer you unparalleled service excellence.

Key Takeaway

Hiring managed IT services benefit your company on so many levels - regardless of its size or complexity. From corporates to small businesses, managed IT solutions give you a chance to focus on growing your bottom line, not your IT department.

Finding managed IT support in Orlando is challenging, but there are firms out there that are the right fit for your business if you know where to look.

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