As any small or mid-size business grows, it’s natural to begin weighing which tasks are best kept in-house, while others can be farmed out to a third party. When it comes to managing the more technical aspects of your operations, you may find it beneficial to outsource your technology oversight to managed IT.
From full network infrastructure management and planning to software procurement and disaster recovery, managed IT offers a full range of services that can be utilized to augment your own IT department or completely handle your IT needs. There are a few key benefits you’ll realize when seeking outside help in this area:
Better Security Planning: Many smaller companies believe that hackers are more likely to target big, global enterprises, but the reality is that small and mid-size companies are seen as low-hanging fruit. Because you have fewer resources to invest in security, you may be more vulnerable than a bigger organization. Hackers also see you as a gateway to your bigger business partners.
A managed IT provider can help you identify gaps in your security strategy and leverage the best tools for monitoring systems and detecting threats. They’ll be able to offer 24/7 coverage, which is difficult to provide in-house. It may be that you not only want monitoring covering, but you’re also about to launch a fleet of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and aren’t sure how that will alter your security plane.
IT Planning: From anticipating the need for an infrastructure investment to managing your service level agreements with providers, managed IT can help you take a strategic approach to IT mapping. Managed IT providers can help you determine where a technology investment may enable you to more effectively reach business goals and where a cloud subscription may make more sense than a capital investment in a particular area.
Managed IT can also help you navigate cost management and lifecycle issues around hardware, mobile devices, and network connectivity.
Preventing Downtime: Many small and mid-size business owners don’t stop to calculate the cost of downtime, but managed IT can help remove this problem by anticipating difficulties that could take systems offline. It can also do preventative maintenance on systems. Managed IT can improve connectivity and configuration to heighten efficiency and productivity.
For example, your managed IT provider will be able to identify when it’s time to invest in an infrastructure upgrade that will help you better manage bandwidth demands of your new cloud-first strategy. While the subscription-based payment model of cloud software may offer significant savings, there can be bandwidth and performance requirements that place a heavy burden on your network. Your managed IT provider can help you navigate decisions around how to best support your connectivity with innovative networking strategies.
To learn more about managed IT and the ways it could supplement or even replace your current technology support, contact us at eXemplify.