At PCH Technologies, we encounter many of the same questions from our clients on a daily basis, so we thought to put together this FAQs page about some of the most commonly asked questions. We can answer these questions much faster this way and hopefully resolve your problems sooner.
What are Managed IT Services?
When you outsource your IT to a third-party company, that is considered managed IT services. You could think of it as a cheaper alternative to hiring someone in-house. You reduce your costs while receiving the necessary IT services to help your business grow.
We will monitor your systems and issue alerts if new threats surface. Managed IT can save you thousands of dollars by taking a proactive approach to technology.
How Much Does Outsourcing IT Cost?
How much it costs to outsource IT will depend on multiple factors, but you can always expect predictable monthly IT costs. In general, it will cost $80 to $150 per month per user, but you can save money because this costs less than hiring an IT professional in-house when you may not have the needs or the financial resources to hire someone that way.
Let’s say that you have a 50-person organization with no on-site servers. That will average about $60,000 per year. You’d need to speak with us to get the specifics, however. Some companies will require more complex cybersecurity practices and others will just need a basic package. How much you pay depends on all of those factors.
What Companies Need Managed IT Services?
Businesses of every size and industry make use of managed IT services. They negate the risk while ensuring that your IT operations never grind to a halt, which can cost your business tens of thousands of dollars.
The industries that we think benefit the most from managed IT services include:
- Finance
- Healthcare
- Auto sales
- Manufacturing
- Hospitality
We don’t want to pigeonhole the industries that can benefit, however, because if your business uses technology, you can often benefit from our managed IT services.
What Happens When I Need Managed IT Support?
We created a system of three tiers in IT support where we deal with clients. You have high-priority, medium-priority, and low-priority calls. High priority means that your organization has gone down because a critical application stopped working, or it has stopped working for a group of people. With those tasks, we will hop on them right away. For medium priority, an application isn’t working for one person. We will get to this one as quickly as we can. Finally, you have low priority, and this means that someone requires access to a file or application, but the task isn’t time sensitive or urgent. Still, we try our best to resolve every problem as quickly as possible.
Most of the calls to our 24-hour support desk receive an answer within 10 seconds, and we trained our IT professionals in a variety of technologies to assist.
Can Your Company Be Too Small for Managed IT Services?
In fact, most managed IT services target mid-size to small business owners because they don’t have the resources or even the needs that would make hiring an in-house IT professional worth the cost. The more important question to ask is how much you value technology. Do you require good technology to keep expanding your company? For example, if you have a small business with fewer than 10 employees and you don’t need the technology to succeed, then you may not require managed IT services. The high strain on your budget wouldn’t be worth it.
With that said, if you can get value out of managed IT services to have a competitive edge, you may find it worth it to pay for the services. Especially considering how the cost is based on the size of your business. We have found that organizations between 15 and 75 employees benefit the most from these types of services.
What are Your Cybersecurity Needs?
The healthcare industry can benefit so much from managed IT services because they require a high level of cybersecurity. They also need to stay compliant with industry regulations or face costly HIPAA fines. If your business requires the same, you may benefit from hiring a managed IT company.
Even small businesses require some cybersecurity because hackers have increasingly targeted small businesses. They take fewer precautions which make them an easy target.
How Do I Know if Managed IT Services are Benefitting Me?
Not all managed IT companies were created equal. Some will offer better support than others. You can tell that your managed IT services were worth the cost if they helped you to keep your business technology online. If the managed IT services allowed you to achieve your goals faster, consider it a valuable service. You can also tell how good an IT company is when your business starts to experience problems. How quickly they respond to your technical issues will speak to the quality of the company.
Another way that you can tell is that your business experiences fewer disruptions. To be clear, no managed IT company will ever give you 100 percent uptime, but they should be able to give you 99.99999 percent uptime. Check the SLA to see how much uptime they promise. If they deliver under that number, you have a right to request a refund, but you can also use this to determine the quality of that IT company.
Discuss Your Goals with Us Today!
We hope that this covers the most common questions that business owners have about hiring managed IT services. At PCH Technologies, we have dedicated ourselves to bringing value to our clients to make it easier for them to focus on the most important aspects of their business. If you’d like to learn more, you can give us a call at (856) 754-7500.