How Working with a Managed Service Provider Helps Your Operations

In today’s highly competitive business environment, any advantage that you can claim will be useful to you. One big advantage you should seek to have is a trusted and reliable resource you can turn to so they can help you manage your IT solutions, consulting you on your business’ future in terms of its technology.

When selecting this resource, you will want to find a managed service provider (MSP) to take on this role. An MSP offers IT consulting and support services to businesses just like yours, working proactively to prevent your business from missing out on any opportunities where revenue could be generated - but more on that momentarily.

There are quite a few reasons that a managed service provider is your best choice of an IT consultant. For instance:

A Managed Service Provider Reduces Your IT Risks

As we mentioned above, the primary goal of the MSP is to offer consulting and support - and much of this consultation and support is devoted to risk management and optimization.

Remember, we mentioned that a managed service provider works proactively, primarily to catch potential IT issues before they become actual IT issues. As a result, working with an MSP makes it less likely that you will encounter IT risks without your provider having already taken action to mitigate them. In turn, this means that you will be less likely to suffer downtime due to these issues, improving your business’ potential productivity.

A Managed Service Provider Pushes You to Better Solutions

Have you ever heard of Moore’s Law? The co-founder of Intel, Gordon E. Moore, made a prediction in a 1965 magazine article that the number of transistors that could occupy a given space on a computer chip would double every two years or so. This prediction proved to be correct, and so we now have a term for the rapid advancement of technology.

Does Moore’s Law factor into your technology strategy at all? It should, and with a managed service provider present, it would. In order for your business to remain competitive in the long term, you need to seriously consider how you will develop your technology solutions. This is a particular specialty of a managed service provider, and by having one assist you, you can be sure that there is a strategy in place for your technological upgrades and overhauls.

A good managed service provider will also make sure that your business is compliant to your particular industry’s regulations and requirements, insulating you from potential hang-ups and keeping your business updated.

An MSP is the Economic Option

Consider your current IT resources: you either go without, have an in-house resource already, or rely on one-off services from other providers. Let’s go over the financial realities of these approaches.

The first is simple, because if you don’t have someone keeping watch over your business’ information technology, you’re already on borrowed time. Sooner or later, you will find yourself closing your doors because of some kind of issue. While this may sound harsh, it’s because it’s the harsh reality of the situation. So, foregoing IT resources isn’t a good option.

You may already have an in-house resource. This is great, so long as this resource is able to keep up with the demands of the day-to-day nature of your business’ technology on top of the long-term planning, they need to be responsible for. Unfortunately, many internal IT departments aren’t., so that option might not be your best bet, either.

Finally, you might rely on the one-off services that other providers deliver. While it may be a good-enough solution in the very short term, this practice isn’t a sustainable one, if only by the nature of the transaction. One-off services are only valuable to the provider the more often that they can provide them - which means that they aren’t really motivated to prevent things from happening to your technology the next time.

If you were to sign with a managed service provider, however, you could see all the benefits of a team of in-house resources working to keep your technology maintained. Furthermore, rather than having to spend the money to locate, hire, and onboard an additional in-house resource (which might not work out), calling an MSP is much simpler, faster, and more effective.

A Managed Service Provider Lets You Focus on Other Things

How much time do you spend stressed about your business’ technology? How much of that time could you potentially be spending more productively, if you didn’t have to worry about your technology? A managed service provider gives you the opportunity to find out. By taking responsibility for your IT maintenance, your provider can take considerable responsibility off your plate, freeing you to focus your energies on other, more profitable endeavors.

Does any of this interest you? As a managed service provider, SCW can be the one to provide all of this (and more) to your business’ processes. Learn more by reaching out to us at (509) 534-1530.