In Short?
A managed service provider can take care of underlying non-core aspects of your business. They provide security, stability, and specialized assistance in the field of information technology to help you focus on what you do best.
We hire accountants and car mechanics to fix our problems, as that is often best left to professionals. Information technology is much the same way- you’re likely not an expert in every tech related field, and that’s ok.
Looking for a bit more detail? Here we go:
Why not do it ourselves?
Small and medium sized businesses (us included) are often guilty of trying to do everything by ourselves. We’ve all been there: thinking we can do something ourselves, only eventually wondering what mess we have gotten ourselves into this time. Eventually, we triumph and move on with our lives.
We, unfortunately, all have finite time and resources. As an example from our operations, while we were trying to figure out a bunch of specifics with accounting early on, we let our core business development slide, and were plagued with issues for quite some time after. Eventually, it was all ‘straightened out’.
But at what cost?
We ‘saved money’ in the sense that we didn’t pay someone. We did however spend countless hours huffing and puffing in frustration over GL accounts and best practices. And, as a result, we allowed our staff to become unfocused and distracted on our core business offerings. That time would be better spent doing something else, like finding clients or improving offerings.
Unfortunately, in the technology services industry, value is even harder to sometimes explain, so we would like to show you a small part of what we bring to the table. Computers have gotten so good, that chances are even with a suboptimal setup, everything will work fine until there’s a problem. And that conveniently brings us into our next topic.
Business Continuity
Like we mentioned, hardware and software have gotten so good it’s easy to set up and do yourself. It’s truly a testament to what things have become.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to set things up in a wrong way.
Here’s an easy test. Let’s say that your business tragically burnt down with everything in it, including the computers and all the data on them with it. Insurance covers the physical assets, goods, building, etc, and you are free to move on with your operations! Hooray!
But how do you get that data back? Countless hours on accounting records, or promotional videos, or just excel files that the organization has been using since it started.
That kind of thing is not something we, as business leaders often think about. Rarely does a catastrophic event like that happen, and there are always more pressing issues. Perhaps your business has taken the step of backing everything up on a drive, or backup service. It’s a great start, but there is always more to be done.
Managed Service Providers go a step further in providing that peace of mind. We not only set up backups, but also monitor and test them too. There have been too many instances of backups being set up years in advance, only to stop working a few years back. Unfortunately, most only find out their backup doesn’t work when it’s needed the most.
Sometimes, you need to be up and running in a flash.
We can further reduce downtime with disaster recovery plans, sometimes down to within the hour. Maybe nothing needs to be up urgently for your business – but that is a discussion worth having. How much does downtime cost for wages and lost business opportunities? The answer is often higher than you may think.
And while buildings rarely burn to the ground, ransomware incidents have certainly been on the rise, with many of the same risks.
Cyber Security
Security is often another thing that we set and forget with our favorite anti-virus – but in this day and age, a good anti virus is only the start.
We all are familiar with the stories.
We have all heard our friends, families, and colleagues tell us about an incident at work that took the company out for a few days. The news: talking about ransomware, supply chain exploits, and so much more. Chances are, the companies affected had security solutions in place. While most think they are prepared, many aren’t
The security field is both a serious concern, and a field where many try to sell you their solution, promising their software will stop all the threats in the world.
It won’t.
No system or setup will thwart all threats. Run from anyone who tells you their solution will. Business continuity solutions are for the incidents when a threat breaks through. But that doesn’t mean all solutions are created equal.
This brings up a question: what is the best way to set yourself up? What program keeps you most protected?
The answer is that it largely depends. Business models and setups vary, and so too do the threats that face them.
The best start is an assessment of what your biggest threat vectors are – and sometimes they aren’t even on your network. Weak credentials, email malware, maliciously placed USB keys are all exploits companies deal with every day. Some are easy to stop, like common malware that your AV will catch. Others, like social engineering attacks, are much harder to stop, because the weak link are the humans.
A good managed security solution will be set up in layers, each complementing one another. Maybe you can stop a virus from ever reaching you with advanced email scanning. But most importantly, a good managed security solution will be monitored, with risks continuously being assessed and mitigated. And when the day comes that something gets through (and it is when – not if), you will be ready with the business continuity solutions that have been set up.
Business Empowerment
Ultimately, a good MSP’s service offering empowers your users. After all, the primary goal is to facilitate business in your day to day operations. To that end, we provide a wide range of solutions to keep you going.
Helpdesk Support
When one of your employees run into an error, it can be frustrating and time consuming to correct. Other resources may be pulled in from your organization to deal with it. We bring our support services to help facilitate day to day operations for everyone.
Productivity Consulting
Infrastructure management, cloud services, vendor management, and so much more. Managed service providers help consolidate, simplify, and ensure you get every last drop from your existing solutions. And when you need to expand your operations, we can help plan out the next steps and provide technical direction for the optimal solutions.
Proactive Maintenance and Monitoring
Our remote monitoring and management of your systems helps proactively fix issues, patch vulnerabilities, and automatically recommend replacement of aging infrastructure. Doing so helps reduce downtime before it ever happens, keeping your ship sailing smoothly through your operations.
Access to Experts
Often, the scale of small to medium businesses do not warrant full time specialists in every field of IT as there is not enough work to go around. However, the needs rapidly grow where they cannot be ignored any more. Managed service providers have a pool of experts on hand to help provide services in any tech-related field as required by their customers.
Summary
To sum it up, it makes sense to get managed IT services from a good provider when your mail business objectives fall outside that realm. Managing information technology is a full-time job, which managed service providers do every day. The economies of scale, combined with our technical expertise often makes technology services both more affordable, accessible, and proficient than doing it in house.
We hit the ground running and bring well established services and procedures. From day one, we bring tested, established procedures and services to keep your team supported and secure to focus on your core business goals. Life with a managed service provider simplifies your information technology needs and provides the peace of mind that someone is always watching over your organization.
MYComputing is a managed service provider, and we would love to help you on any of these fronts. If you have any questions or would like to chat, please feel free to reach out to us anytime for a free glance-over at your existing setup.
