Managed service providers (MSPs) have garnered much recent attention for helping companies navigate their increasingly complex IT environments. The COVID-19 crisis prompted most companies to transition their employees to home offices, a sweeping change that businesses had to adopt after little notice.
The pandemic put many small to medium-sized businesses in a bind, to be sure. Many IT departments found it excessively difficult to deliver support and services to the unexpected influx of telecommuters. Small business owners, in turn, sought out managed and co-managed IT service provider solutions who worked tirelessly to make the transition to remote work as seamless as possible.
If you haven’t partnered with MSP or MSSP services before, there are two ways to go about it. An IT service provider can take over your entire IT operations, or you can specify select IT and security functions to form a co-managed partnership. The former essentially replaces your existing internal IT department while the latter works alongside it to provide specialized support.
Generally speaking, most small business owners deploy a managed or co-managed solution because some function of their operation is understaffed. Around 2009, MSPs started gaining their initial traction in the healthcare industry. Many dental and medical offices, for instance, don’t staff any IT support at all. They strictly outsource these services to save on costs and better streamline their own processes.
What are managed IT services?
Managed service providers are outsourcers that facilitate and execute some aspect or business function on behalf of their customers. MSPs frequently handle non-revenue generating operations essential to conducting business. Yet tend to run in the background, exposing them to undesirable neglect. Some examples of these functions include payroll, workforce management, networking monitoring and security, and more.
Yet withal, not all managed services are IT services. For the most part, however, when people mention managed services, it refers to outsourced services pertaining to business technology. Nearly every aspect of commerce has gone digital, and IT infrastructure is the backbone of most organizations. With that in mind, successful business owners can quickly find themselves in a pinch after realizing their technology requirements have abruptly outpaced the skill levels of their internal IT departments.
Keeping your IT department strictly in-house can be prohibitively expensive, especially considering the quickly modern technology evolves. You might find that your direct hires are constantly chasing down solutions to unfamiliar problems. This scenario can rapidly snowball, leading to a myriad of unanticipated network and data security problems. Properly administrating your IT department means having the right tools and talent installed. MSP and MSSP services play an integral role in delivering vital IT services to companies while helping to reduce costs.
How managed services benefit your small business
Before your business can achieve high levels of productivity, it needs an updated IT infrastructure to ensure optimal connectivity and security. Here are a just few ways managed services can make your business more efficient and secure:
1. Enhanced productivity
Ranked among the top 10 managed security service providers, PCH Technologies has a proven track record of helping its customers improve business efficiency by reducing unplanned downtime. Partnering with a reputable managed service means you don’t have to worry about sudden IT malfunctions. If you have an overstressed in-house IT department, a co-managed solution can relieve them of non-revenue generating tasks. This means your team can apply their core competencies elsewhere, to areas that help drive revenue growth.
2. More scalability and agility
Small companies grow much faster than their enterprise counterparts, so having access to agile and scalable IT solutions is crucial. Managed service providers let you scale your IT infrastructure without having to make costly upfront investments in new infrastructure. Our team of experts can manage all of your IT, deploying the latest tools and technologies to leverage the Cloud, increasing your capacity as required.
3. Stronger cybersecurity
Cyberattacks on large corporations frequently make headlines, but threat actors have been targeting small businesses at alarming rates. Cybercriminals are that smaller companies simply don’t have the budgets to defend against new, sophisticated cyberthreats. If a threat actor successfully penetrates your systems, the damages are more than just financial. A breach of your sensitive client information damages brand reputations, and you lose the trust of your valued customers.
Optimize your IT security management
The rise of cyber threats means data protection is a foremost priority. As a top MSSP service, we remotely industry-leading deliver IT security, including antivirus and anti-malware deployment and management, managed firewalls, and advanced threat detection and prevention. As an IT security-focused MSSP, we leverage our clients’ security operations centers to administer watertight security to their operations.
In the new post-pandemic, companies must overcome complex IT challenges quickly. For more information on how PCH Technologies can reduce your IT security overhead while increasing protection and productivity, call (856) 754-7500.