As technology continues to evolve, businesses – especially SMEs – may find themselves struggling to keep pace with the everchanging developments in IT. Many small in-house IT teams simply don’t have the resources available to keep pace with emerging IT trends and ensure their systems are running reliably and securely.
With this in mind, it’s often a good idea for SMEs to partner with an established IT managed services provider (MSP).
What is an IT MSP?
An IT MSP is a third-party company that manages a customer’s IT infrastructure and end-user systems via an ongoing support contract. IT MSPs take on the responsibility of managing IT infrastructure, offering technical support, strengthening security processes, and much more.
This allows business owners to focus on what really matters – managing their business.
When companies partner with an MSP, they gain access to an expert IT team that has experience and knowledge combined with the right tools, technology, and resources to boost business efficiency and elevate an organisation.
A dedicated IT MSP can provide a lot of value to a company. Here are the top 8 benefits of partnering with an IT MSP…
1. Avoid business downtime
Due to a lack of resources, many SMEs are guilty of taking a reactive approach to their IT procedures. By partnering with an MSP, businesses can start to think beyond simple break/fix IT and adopt a proactive approach to managing their critical IT systems.
An MSP will provide round-the-clock live monitoring of your entire IT environment and resolve any potential issues before they become a problem.
At DVAD, as part of our IT support packages, we’ll monitor your system, including back-ups and internet connections, and make continual adjustments to ensure the efficiency and reliable performance of your network solution. If a problem should occur, we’ll conduct root cause analysis (RCA) to prevent the same issue from happening again. This will help to minimise your business downtime and keep your IT systems running as they should.
Considering IT system downtime can cost a business up to £83,000 per hour, it’s easy to see why working with an MSP offers so much value.
2. Gain access to experts
Managing business IT systems is a complex practice. Many different aspects of technology need to work together succinctly in order to create an effective IT infrastructure, which can be difficult for SMEs to achieve.
When partnering with an MSP, you’ll have access to an entire team of experienced industry professionals, each with their own speciality – security experts, hardware experts, cloud experts etc – so they’ll be able to help and offer advice on a wide range of IT topics.
3. Benefit from the latest technology
If your internal IT teams and resources are stretched thin, how can they focus on ensuring your business is as innovative as it can be?
Technology is constantly evolving, and so small businesses may not always be equipped to handle the changes. Partnering with an MSP provides access to the latest, most advanced technological tools, as well as a wide range of experience in the IT industry, ensuring that your business gets the best, most up-to-date services.
4. More cost-efficient
Many SMEs choose to work with an MSP as it’s typically more cost-efficient than keeping everything in-house. There are several reasons for this:
- There’s no need to recruit and train new staff to gain access to more expertise
- MSPs are able to manage IT systems 24/7, which is a tough ask for small in-house teams
- There’s less risk of large, unexpected costs thanks to monthly set support prices
- Shifting from a Capex model to an Opex model means no large upfront payments
5. 24/7 assistance
With business IT systems, issues can arise at any time. Partnering with an MSP offers 24/7/365 monitoring of all systems, unlimited first response, and incident management.
This can be very hard for small, in-house IT teams to achieve, which poses a risk to business continuity.
At DVAD we offer 24/7 IT system monitoring provided by a team of dedicated IT engineers. In the event of an IT emergency, our team are also on-hand to resolve issues at any time of the day, helping your business to run smoothly.
6. Easily scalable
Small IT teams do not always have the manpower or resources available to scale their IT operations in line with business growth. When you partner with an MSP, they have the resources available to instantly take on further work.
On the flip side, MSPs can also easily scale down their workload should your business requirements change.
Just amend your MSP service level agreement in line with your business requirements – there’s no need to go through the hiring/firing process!
7. Heightened security
Over the past few years, SME owners have started to understand the security risks they face and the importance of a watertight cybersecurity approach. However, it’s not always feasible for small businesses to employ a full-time IT security expert.
With an MSP onboard, businesses have access to highly trained security experts who continuously work to increase resilience against cyber threats. MSPs have access to key software designed to anticipate and target security breaches before they even occur.
In the unfortunate event of a data breach or malware attack, security experts at MSPs will be instantly on hand to get your business up and running again.
8. Give your in-house team more time
With SMEs, IT staff are often so focused on keeping their IT system running as usual, they have little time to focus on their future IT strategy.
By partnering with an MSP that manages your proactive IT issues, handles your day-to-day business tasks and oversees your critical systems, this allows your in-house team to focus on delivering an IT strategy that’s designed to drive your business forward.
Contact Us for Your IT MSP Needs
At DVAD we’re not your typical IT MSP – we pride ourselves in offering tailored IT support that is proactive, cost-effective and delivers total peace of mind. Our aim is to develop a close working relationship with you, so we can understand your specific requirements. This partnership approach allows us to guide and assist our customers with all their IT needs.
If you’d like to speak to us about our IT support services, or would like us to work as your IT MSP partner, please call us on 0800 84 999 84, or email us at enquiries@direct-voiceanddata.com.
Our full contact information can be found here: https://dvad.co.uk/contact-us/.
