How managed service providers can save a business money
The short answer to ‘What does a managed service provider do?’ is anything you need to strengthen, optimise and protect your IT.
As organisations rely so heavily on their technology, you can already see why MSPs can be crucial to business development, including protecting you from shocking levels of global cybercrime.
This article drills down on this topic in more detail, and particularly how you can save money by using a managed service provider.
What is a managed service provider?
First, let’s explore the role of MSPs in more detail.
The best managed service providers mould their IT support specifically around your company’s current IT status and business goals. They basically help you fill any gaps in between, including recommending and instigating infrastructure and network improvements.
Beyond that, their advice and activities can be summed up by saying they guide you towards becoming an authentic digital workplace. This includes ensuring you have high levels of connectivity, integration, and cyber security.
This could include helping you to buy Microsoft 365 licences under favourable terms and offering you access to affordable leased lines to improve internet access wall-to-wall at your premises. Whatever you need to improve and optimise your IT, a managed service provider will aim to help.
What support do managed service providers deliver?
Some organisations call in MSPs to help with IT transformation activities, such as migrating more of their business operations to cloud computing or switching over to VoIP phone systems.
However, managed service providers also offer an important ongoing IT resource, which can save you money long term. This includes offering 24-hour access to IT advice and ‘fixes’ that avoid business downtime or employee mistakes and confusion.
They make IT updates seamless and automatic. Also, the leading managed service providers are constantly looking for ways to improve your IT so you can do things quicker and more cost-efficiently.
How can these services cut business spending?
Apart from the fact MSPs can prevent you from losing money, their IT services can also reduce the amount you spend as an organisation. This includes maximising opportunities for you to use Cloud technology, to avoid costly investment in hardware and software.
Any new technology they recommend to you – such as leased lines – will be designed to quickly pay for itself with long term cost savings.
A good example of the money you can save using MSPs is switching to VoIP phone systems. VoIP enables you to spend less on traditional telephone equipment, and you also get free calls. The added benefit is your team can make contact with each other, your customers and suppliers using any device.
This – and the business advantages of having Microsoft 365 installed – means your team can collaborate and communicate remotely with ease, including sharing data in real-time and delivering well-orchestrated project management and customer presentations digitally. This, of course, saves travel costs as well as time.
When should a business consider using an MSP?
The financial benefits of bringing in continuous support with your IT run alongside other key advantages. Engaging a managed services provider will improve your business connectivity and integration, as well as your data management, security and agility.
Also, you urgently need a managed service provider if you haven’t already got a robust Disaster Recovery Plan. They can advise you on the best way to automate data storage off-site, and cloud solutions that can get you up and running quickly if your head office or server goes offline.
Your IT services provider can also actively participate in your data retrieval systems, and your efforts to recover from data breaches for example.
In other words, they are an essential ally in avoiding or minimising business interruption.
The cost of not using an MS
You can also approach the financial benefits of engaging managed service providers from a different perspective. If your IT fails to keep pace with your competitors – or your customers’ expectations and demands – it can be disastrous.
So can failing to maintain cyber security. Did you know <a href=”https://letsreachsuccess.com/data-breaches-killing-companies/”>60%</a> of SMEs go out of business entirely within six months of experiencing a major data breach or cyber attack?
Also, a more insidious threat to your financial health comes from leaking resources – and making mistakes – due to antiquated legacy systems or fragmented IT. Not to mention the risk of not having Disaster Recovery Plans and off-site data storage.
This poses the question, can you afford not to bring in managed service providers?