Every business, from the small owner-operator to a large corporation, can benefit from a managed services provider (MSP). MSPs offer experience, depth of expertise and a vantage point about what your competition is up to technologically that you just can”™t get by yourself or with an in-house IT staff.
It”™s not because you or your team aren”™t capable, but focusing on your business is usually all-consuming. A quality MSP can give your business significant competitive advantages with increased system reliability as well as an understanding of what the marketplace is doing.
Consider a small owner-operator business. They”™re out there all day working with customers and clients, bringing in new business, dealing with vendors, managing employees. The to-do list is endless. One day they come in and the computer with all the financial data, or customer data, or employee data won”™t turn on. They spend the next hour trying to get it to work, calling a “friend who knows computers” who walks them through a series of steps that has “always worked.”
This time, after several hours and a trip to the nearest Best Buy Geek Squad, the prognosis is the patient has passed away. That”™s when it starts to get dark: no computer, no records, no backup, no luck.
Had an MSP been managing the computers, this scenario would likely have been anticipated. Backups of all data would be in place and all software and licenses would be inventoried. The MSP would have recommended replacing the computer long before it died, but even if it did die it could have the business back up and running fast ”” often the same day.
Now let”™s look at a small business with about 25 or more employees. While the smaller owner-operator may be able to continue in the short term with a pencil and paper while they get their systems up and running, larger businesses literally grind to a halt when the network and systems fail. They have dozens of employees sitting idle because their jobs demand they use the programs and files on the network and the equipment that”™s connected to it ”“ whether it”™s email, word, or accounting systems to pay vendors, make payroll, or finish the proposal that must go out by the end of the day. Others working the shop floor where the CNC machine is driven by the CAD software that is no longer working are also idled.
For organizations like this an MSP is not a nice-to-have; it”™s an invaluable member of the team. From asset replacement planning and budgeting, to monitoring the health of all the systems and network, to ensuring your servers, workstations and equipment are up to date and running smoothly, to protecting your valuable data and other private and confidential information from prying eyes, a good MSP will be your partner with a vested interest in the ongoing operations of your business and the systems and network that support it.
Even large corporations with an in-house IT team are not exempt from the needs of the skills of an MSP. In-house teams are usually built to support the day-to-day operations of the large and often complex organization and while they do that with aplomb, they are sized for that purpose. That means they”™re often so bogged down by routine daily tasks that their talent is wasted, jeopardizing the very core of your business infrastructure. In-house teams become overworked on the minutiae and underutilized given their skill set, making them more vulnerable to error. They aren”™t adding nearly as much value to your business as they should be; it”™s not a good place to be, for you or them.
An MSP can free an in-house IT team from the daily burdens that plague businesses and consume their time. Whether it”™s through automating the basics like operating system and application patch management, security audits/updates or providing an end-user help desk to deal with end-user frustrations, an MSP can free your staff to work on all the things that help your business grow. They would be solid contributors to your business if they weren”™t running around extinguishing tech fires and handling monotonous tasks that are below their skill level.
The long and the short of it is that every business and any business can benefit from using an MSP.
Al Alper is CEO and founder of Absolute Logic in Wilton, a technical support and technology consultant to businesses of up to 250 employees in Connecticut and New York, and a national speaker and author on IT and security issues. He can be reached at al.alper@absolutelogic.com or 203-936-6680.
