Should you outsource your IT to a Managed Service Provider?

Outsourcing is often a key component of a successful business model. Introducing outsourcing brings in changes that reduce operating costs, improve workflow, and ensures that focus can remain on business goals such as boosting profitability, upscaling the business and innovation.

There is no truer example of this than Managed IT Services, which is often regarded as one of the most effective outsourcing solutions in modern business. There are numerous advantages to switching to a professional IT service provider, leaving you and your business the time and resources to focus on core strategies.

What are Managed IT services?

Managed IT services encompass all areas of IT including:

• Network monitoring and security
• IT infrastructure management
• Systems administration
• Data backup and recovery
• Cloud storage
• Server maintenance

These are all functions that form the backbone of your business, ensuring that everything runs smoothly. However, when one or more of them encounters an issue, it can affect productivity, profitability and even the security of your business. This is where outsourcing comes in.

What are the benefits of outsourcing IT for your business?

Ensures your IT infrastructure is up to date

Falling behind on things such as software updates throughout IT systems can cause a number of headaches for your business. The most significant of these is that your business and the data you hold are left vulnerable to cyber-attacks. These can be debilitating for businesses to recover from and impact the trust you have with partners and customers.

It can also slow down your IT systems and lead to incompatibility with key external tools. Ultimately, these setbacks result in dips in productivity, workflow, and staff’s workplace satisfaction.

When your IT infrastructure management is outsourced to specialist Managed Service Providers (MSPs), you don’t have to worry about being up to date, what updates mean or how to implement them without causing disruption. You’re free to focus on your business and rest assured that your IT infrastructure is safely in the hands of trusted professionals.

Minimise Downtime

One of the key benefits of outsourcing your IT functions is that, once you’re fully set up and integrated, all of your systems are streamlined and integrated within high-end systems. This means that periods of disruption and downtime would only ever be in unprecedented circumstances. Updates to IT systems can be applied and monitored overnight, minimising interruptions in normal working hours.

A simple solution to a complex issue

Outsourcing your IT management ensures that your maintenance and support is centralised and accessible to you. Rather than managing a number of relationships, you have a reliable one-stop-shop for your entire business IT needs. Internal IT teams are free to focus on more valuable business activities, without the added pressure of continuous monitoring of operational infrastructure.

Your service can grow as you do

As your business grows and changes, you will note that your IT requirements do, too. When starting out, you may feel you only need one or two services such as cloud hosting but over time, an entire IT package may feel more appropriate or essential for business.

Choosing your Managed Service Provider

When partnering with service providers, it’s vital to know that they are flexible to your business needs, offer cutting-edge services and are excellent communicators. It’s also important to have the conversation around disaster recovery, ensuring there’s a robust strategy in place to keep your data safe should anything happen.

There is a lot to consider when it comes to outsourcing your IT Support. Working closely with a reliable, high-quality service provider can give you the peace of mind and efficiency that you need to focus on the growth and profitability of your business.