Depending on the size of your company you may not have the financial resources to hire a team of technology specialists. Having an in-house IT team can be expensive, and not every technology expert is an expert in all technology fields. By outsourcing IT to a Managed Service Provider (MSP) you can keep your IT costs reasonable and benefit from the expertise of an entire IT team. Let’s explore more about MSP’s and the benefits of having one.
What is an MSP?
A Managed Service Provider, or MSP, is an outsourced information technology company that delivers IT services to businesses. This allows companies to stay up to date on technology, have access to a skill set that you might not have on staff, and helps small to medium businesses get robust technology solutions that otherwise not be cost-effective.
5 Reasons Why You Need an MSP
Direct access to experts in all things IT.
A huge advantage of using a Managed Service Provider is it allows direct access to trained individuals that specialize in all the different areas of IT. Experts in networking, storage, virtualization, monitoring, security, and more are only a phone call away. Staffing these types of resources internally is nearly impossible for any small to medium-sized business. As the technical landscape becomes more and more advanced, IT Generalists have a huge burden with uptraining. Through specialization, an MSP can allocate resources across these different disciplines and source them directly to customers.
Cost Savings over in-house IT.
Technology is expensive. Employees are expensive. Employees trained in IT are very expensive. From headhunting and hiring to benefits, training, and management. Maintaining an internal IT department is costly. Outsourcing to an MSP alleviates many of the administrative tasks associated with direct hiring. Removing that overhead translates into savings for businesses.
Supplement your IT staff to free up resources.
A very common challenge for IT Departments is balancing project work and day to day operations. More often than not, project work and change management get pushed aside for daily user support, maintenance, and so on. Supplementing existing IT staff with an MSP is a particular model that works well to solve this challenge. Help Desk support and recurring maintenance can be moved over into an MSP. Taking away these daily, often interrupted, tasks from your internal staff frees them up to concentrate more on strategic projects and change management.
Savings in licensing costs.
The tools of the trade usually come with a big price tag. Some of the hurdles businesses have with licensing costs can be helped by sourcing licensing through an MSP. MSP’s have the ability to purchase licenses in large amounts through special vendor relationships and can extend this to their customers. Also, certain vendors have minimum purchase requirements for some products which can leave out smaller customers. By using an MSP to purchase these licenses it allows small businesses to take advantage of enterprise products that otherwise are out of reach.
Security is an absolute necessity.
As mentioned earlier when talking about specialization, IT Generalists have a huge burden with uptraining. Security is one area especially that is becoming increasingly complex. Email heuristics, firewall hardening, end-user training, all these areas involve a unit of specialization. Using an MSP is a must to improve your business’s security posture. This includes cloud services all the way down to end-user training. Through different product suites and industry experience, an MSP can provide that much needed extra layer of protection.
Conclusion
Technology is always changing and hiring your own in-house team can be cost-prohibitive and may require more staff than you have the budget for. By outsourcing this important job to a team of experts you know that your IT needs are taken care of and that you have access to expert support should you need it.
Atom Creek understands that all businesses are different and have different IT needs. That is why we tailor our services to the unique needs of your company, and never subscribe to the “one size fits all” business model. We believe in one-on-one client management, so you know your business and data is being given the care and attention to detail it deserves. If you think that your business could benefit from an MSP, please contact Atom Creek today.
