Everyone dreams of owning a business, but a lot of people don’t understand the headaches that come along with the bargain. Apart from the obvious things, like taxes and regulations, you also have to deal with the stress of an entire organization resting on your decisions. When problems begin to occur, it’s a little bit easy for business owners (especially small business owners) to feel a little overwhelmed. In this article, we will make the case that those people should consider employing the services of a managed service provider (MSP). Let’s talk about some of the ways in which they can help to alleviate some of your woes.
Cost Consolidation
IT expenses can add up very quickly, and it’s no secret as to why that is so. If you look at your monthly IT expenses, you are probably looking at a long list that includes hardware costs, software costs, and any repair or maintenance costs that were deemed necessary. At times, that list can add up to a pretty substantial chunk of money. Thankfully, an MSP can probably save you quite a bit of that.
Managed service providers might be a little more expensive than standard internet providers, but they offer all kinds of managed IT support services. Most of the IT costs on your list can probably be traced to services which an MSP can provide. When you put everything into one plan, you also consolidate all your IT costs into one simple monthly bill. In most cases, it will also reduce that monthly bill by quite a bit. If nothing else, the equipment costs alone should save you a substantial amount.
Better Efficiency From Your IT Staff
Your on-site IT staff should not be blamed for your business woes, because it’s very possible that they may just be overwhelmed like you are. If you have had a lot of tech issues lately, that is even more likely to be the case. They have probably been splitting their time between routine maintenance/monitoring tasks and putting out various IT fires that will spring up here and there.
An overwhelmed worker is going to be stressed out, and will therefore not be operating at their best. Sure, they will probably be able to grind through and get their jobs done, but wouldn’t you rather have maximum efficiency from them? By outsourcing a lot of those routine maintenance/monitoring tasks, you are giving them more time to concentrate on fixing problems and improving the overall structure of your network.
Much Better Disaster Recovery
Data disasters are a danger for just about all businesses these days. Unless yours is a rare example of a business that doesn’t buy or sell on the internet, you will need to think about the possibility of a data crash, data breach, ransomware attack, or anything else that could compromise your network security. MSP’s will normally have provisions for disaster recovery and a lot of experience in dealing with problems of this kind.
For instance, let’s say that you are a victim of a ransomware attack. We use this as an example because it’s one of the scariest hacking scenarios that are likely to happen. This involves a cyber-attacker using encryption to lock you out of your system. This means that all your data belongs to them, and they will demand a ransom for its return. Unfortunately, according to the FBI, most people will not get their files back, even if they pay the ransom.
If you have the services of a good MSP, this won’t be as big of a problem as you think. Any good MSP should provide regular backups of your entire system. This should include all data. You can choose where the data is stored, but they are the ones who handle the routine backup tasks. That means you can restore your entire system to an earlier point (before the hack). Thus, you can just delete everything and start over, restoring your system to a previous state. You might lose a few days (or maybe even a couple of weeks) of work, but that’s a lot better than the alternative.
Access To The Latest Tech
Unless your company is very tech-focused, you are not always going to have the latest and greatest things. Whether it’s desktops, laptops, tablets, network equipment, or anything else, it isn’t practical for most companies to update their gear that often. However, it is practical for an MSP to invest in the best technology that they can afford. That’s because they are a tech-focused business, and that represents their entire livelihood.
The benefit here is that you can gain access to the latest technology without necessarily having to pay all those upgrade costs. Your MSP’s network will be maintained with much better equipment than you are likely to have. This also provides added security, as newer devices and software tend to be harder to exploit. If you’ve been stressing about tech upgrade costs, that is a cost that you can easily outsource.
Conclusion
These are just four of the ways in which managed IT service can make life easier for a business owner. Not everyone should have to focus their attention on IT matters, and not everyone can be expected to learn about them. In most cases, it is simpler and cheaper to put these things in the hands of dedicated professionals. They have no other job except to maintain your network properly, allowing them to get better results in most cases.
Hiring PCH Technologies as your managed service provider will enable your business to grow unlike ever before. For more information or to schedule a consultation, please give us a call at 856-754-7500 or schedule a consultation online.