Managed service is a practice of outsourcing a breadth of functions and processes to a third party. Businesses often hire managed service providers to outsource information services, supply-chain services, and marketing services.
Managed services offer several benefits to businesses of all sizes. In this article, we’ll outline 21 benefits of hiring a managed IT service provider to organizations.
Eliminates Team Development Costs
The costs of hiring, training, and developing IT teams are very high. According to the SHRM's new Human Capital Benchmarking Report, the average cost of recruiting an employee for an organization is $4,217. It takes 42 days to fill a given position.
Organizations can outsource the support functions like IT infrastructure management and asset management rather than spending huge money on building internal teams. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) work on an annual contract basis and look after the entire IT infrastructure of their clients at lower costs.
Increases IT Efficiency Services
According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime for an organization is $5,600 per minute. Avaya Report also found that organizations lose anywhere between $2,300 and $9000 per minute depending on size operations due to IT downtime. IT downtime is a major threat to the productivity of the company.
MSPs will have qualified resources and tons of experience handling IT projects. They anticipate the issues that may cause IT downtime and take quick action to improve the efficiency of IT infrastructure.
A Better Planning for IT Deployment
An organization should have proper plans to deploy the IT infrastructure. Due to the lack of expertise and resources, the organization might fail to come up with suitable IT deployment plans.
A poor website deployment leads to software failure. IT deployment team services can fail due to the following reasons:
- Poorly defined success criteria
- Lack of knowledge of IT environments
- Inadequate test set-up
- Inability to verify responses like HTTP 404 or HTTP 500
A managed IT service provider can help to deploy the IT projects successfully and reduce the deployment costs through services, such as virtual desktop infrastructure and managed cloud hosting.
Helps to Focus on Core Business Functions
MSPs let you focus on your core business elements and strategic initiatives by assuming the responsibility of secondary business functions like IT infrastructure and asset management.
For instance, a pharmaceutical company can focus on activities, such as research & development and drug development that create value rather than on support services. The increased focus helps the organization to scale its business and achieve higher efficiencies.
A Single Point of Contact Benefit
Organizations procure hardware and software every year to improve operational efficiencies. IT vendor management is a difficult and time-consuming process for organizations that operate in industries like textiles, medicines, and automobiles.
Outsourced IT partners step in at this phase and streamline the vendor management process. They become the single point of contact for all things IT related to procurements and deployments. MSPs save money for the organization by avoiding the procurement of incompatible and redundant products.
Helps to Overcome the Threat of Cyber Attacks
Research has found that large-scale enterprises and SMBs spend $1.41 million and $118K respectively to recover from a cyberattack. In this case, prevention is better than cure. Businesses should aim to prevent a cyberattack from happening rather than react to it. MSPs will have the capabilities to assess the security loopholes within the IT infrastructure and implement suitable cybersecurity mechanisms. A managed network Services provider like AOP Inc. has a fully managed network security solution that provides 24x7 security and network monitoring.
Eliminates Website Technology Issues
Employees lose 22 minutes of working time per day dealing with technology issues at the workplace. The lack of efficient software and hardware could increase employee dissatisfaction levels.
MSPs must have worked for several organizations and managed thousands of users. They will have an idea of tech issues that frequently arise and solutions that are available to address the tech issues. Organizations can leverage the knowledge and experience of MSPs to improve workplace productivity and employee satisfaction levels.
Helps to Keep Compliant with Federal Laws and Regulations
Businesses should ensure that their IT infrastructure complies with the federal laws and regulations such as:
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- Financial Industry Regulatory Authority(FINRA)
- Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI-DSS)
The major consequences of non-compliance are hefty fines, lawsuits, compensation costs, damaged reputation, and federal audits. According to PCI Compliance Blog, acquiring banks attract a fine of up to $100,000 from payment brands for non-compliance with PCI guidelines.
MSPs with their expertise would keep an eye on changing regulations and eliminate the compliance gaps. Some even offer HIPAA compliance programs that automatically upgrade policies and engage the best compliance attorneys.
Optimizes Remote Working Experience
Remote working is here to stay. Organizations like Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Facebook are facilitating hybrid workplaces. SMBs also prefer their employees to work from remote locations to reduce operational expenses.
IT infrastructure should work efficiently when the workforce operates from remote locations. A managed service provider can develop an IT network that offers a seamless remote working experience to employees without compromising on security.
Unlimited Support at a Flat Rate
IT infrastructure is vulnerable to changes in both internal and external business environments. For instance, businesses grow over a period. An organization with 100 employees might operate with an employee base of 500 people after a few years. The existing infrastructure that worked well for 100 employees might not work when the business grows to 500 employees.
The factors like changes in a competitive atmosphere and improvements in lifestyles of people would make the existing IT infrastructure obsolete. If this happens, the organization should upgrade existing systems or install new systems. The organization needs to hire an exclusive third party whenever it needs support; these exclusive and one-time deals cost hugely for the organization.
MSPs can eliminate the need for the organization to enter into these exclusive deals. Since they take the responsibility of maintaining the IT network throughout the contract period, the organization can receive unlimited support at a mutually agreed flat rate. They would install the upgrades and implement new software applications depending on the contractual terms at a flat rate.
Technology Roadmap
An emerging organization needs a technology roadmap that visually communicates the near-time technology strategy. A technology roadmap helps a business to organize its capabilities and outline the near-term IT initiatives.
MSPs assist the organization to develop a technology roadmap, which plays a critical role in meeting the evolving IT needs of the business. The technology roadmap can create a unified vision for IT and operations divisions at the workplace. It reduces IT operational costs and improves collaboration among the team members.
24X7 Availability
Businesses that manage IT through an internal team would struggle to manage the IT-related issues when the designated staff is on vacation or resigns from the job.
This is where the MSPs come in. They have a full range of skill sets and capabilities to handle complex IT issues. MSPs work 24X7 to cater to the needs of their clients. Organizations that hire MSPs will no longer worry about a designated IT executive leaving the job or taking a vacation in crucial business seasons.
Improves the Efficiency of Backup and Archiving Practices
According to research, 86% of businesses back up data at least once a month. Only 26% of organizations are performing back-ups daily. Acronis also indicated that 42% of companies experienced a data loss event, of which many of them could not recover the data.
Today, organizations collect data on consumers, competitors, and the internal business environment. This data should be stored and archived securely, giving access only to the authorized executives.
Moving to digital-only storage has become a new norm for organizations to reduce storage fees and improve security. A managed service provider can develop a robust backup and archival plan for the organization. There are platforms that turn your paper files into PDFs, reduce file storage expenses, and improve file security with cloud hosting.
Optimizes Mobile Devices
E-commerce is slowly transforming into mCommerce. The share of mCommerce in 2021 will be around 72% of the total e-commerce transactions.
IT heads believe that mobile technology can provide a seamless customer experience and streamline teamwork. However, these benefits are worth only when the integrity of the data is protected. MSPs can optimize mobile devices by deploying a mobility solution that is personalized to the needs of the business.
Improves the Efficiency of Disaster Recovery Practices
Businesses should give equal priority to both backup plans and disaster recovery plans. Businesses that don’t have robust disaster recovery plans cannot survive an attack like ransomware. The costs of downtime and recovery are too high. For instance, small businesses that suffered from ransomware attacks had lost on an average $100,000 due to downtime and recovery costs.
MSPs will have an understanding of concepts like Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). They can develop a suitable disaster recovery plan and align it with the organization’s RPO and RTO practices. 92% of organizations that outsource disaster recovery say that the costs of outsourcing are lesser than performing the function in-house. Low cost is one of the advantages of managed services.
Improves the Efficiency of Cloud Management Services
Emerging organizations move to the cloud when the business reaches a certain level in the life cycle. By 2025, 100 zettabytes of data will be stored on the cloud.
A managed IT services provider can help you leverage the cloud while keeping the data storage costs at their lowest. AOP Inc. knows when it is appropriate for the organization to move into the cloud. It helps organizations to optimize the storage and migrate the data to the cloud in no time.
Improves the Life of IT Assets
An IT asset is a piece of software or hardware within a network infrastructure. Gartner projects that the worldwide IT spend would be $4.1 trillion in 2021, up by 8.4% from the previous year. A significant part of this expenditure would go towards purchasing new IT assets.
IT assets need regular maintenance for their long-lasting life. IT asset management is the process of maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of the IT assets as per the schedule.
A managed service provider would improve the life of IT assets and reduce the need of purchasing new assets now and then by:
- Integrating IT assets into the tracking system
- Developing a schedule for maintenance
- Upgrading IT assets based on the evolving needs of the business
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory standards
- Disposing of them when they reach the end of service life
Better Alignment of IT Infrastructure and Business Goals
The IT infrastructure should align with the business goals of the organization. Creating a robust IT infrastructure is a waste of resources and efforts if the organization does not need it. Organizations should carefully assess the need and create an IT infrastructure accordingly.
MSPs would assist the organization in developing an IT network that exactly meets its needs. They keep track of evolving business goals of the organization and make changes to the existing infrastructure whenever a need arises.
Provides Decision-Making Inputs
Strategic decision-making has an important role to play in the growth of the organization. Decision-makers seek a lot of information about internal operations, customers, and the competition before making a decision.
MSPs work with several companies within the same industry. They have a lot of information on what the competition is doing about IT infrastructure management. They also keep an eye on the latest technological developments in the industry. Organizations can rely on MSPs for critical decision-making data related to technology.
An Extension of the In-House Team
The in-house IT team may not help in solving complex issues in IT infrastructure. Their role and expertise may be limited to solving day-to-day IT issues and the smooth functioning of the operations. Organizations need a strategic IT partner when taking a strategic decision like implementing an enterprise application or migrating to new technology.
The managed IT service provider will act as an extension to the existing IT team and play the role of strategic IT partner.
Managed Services Increase the Overall Workplace Productivity
Every organization aims to increase the productivity of the workplace. IT infrastructure plays a crucial role in improving productivity. The issues such as downtime, network outage, cyberattacks, technology issues, outdated hardware, and incompatible systems would cause low workplace productivity.
A managed service provider has expertise and resources to prevent IT issues and help the organization to achieve better productivity.
