Your business already has an IT staff so how can a Managed Service Provider help your business? Short answer: ...
Your business already has an IT staff so how can a Managed Service Provider help your business? Short answer: Co-Managed IT Support. There is a common misconception among SMBs, that partnering with an MSP essentially means handing control over to the MSP and managing your IT team. This is actually very far from the truth. We work with many businesses with their own IT staff and we partner with them to help benefit them and their businesses.
An MSP can complement your IT team by providing the necessary services and equipment that can fill gaps in your existing IT infrastructure. Partnering with an MSP can also support your organization during periods of growth or change, thereby equipping you to better handle routine IT tasks.
The best thing about working with a managed service provider is that you can have different levels of service that fits the needs of your team. Whether it is full-service IT administration or backend support that is more hands off and proactive. In short, when your IT team and MSP work together, your business benefits the most in terms of data management, secure operations, and peace of mind.
Here’s a detailed look at different ways an MSP can support your internal IT team.
IT Overflow Support:
Do you get nervous every time your full-time IT person leaves for vacation? Businesses can benefit from co-managed IT services in this instance by allowing an organization to supplement their IT team. We work with a couple of companies that regularly use us for this purpose. When they know their IT team will be out of town, they schedule us to be on site or standing by to take their tickets. We are also a resource when unexpected needs arise, like is someone on their IT team calls off sick, we are there.
Project Support:
Co-managed project support makes sense when internal IT doesn't have the time. It also makes sense for projects that don't come up frequently. With a limited number of servers and systems, in-house IT teams often upgrade servers only once every few years. Because MSPs support multiple clients, the average MSP engineer might work on multiple server replacements in a month. We can also help your team build the project plans, budgets and help manage the project.
Enhanced Cybersecurity:
Not all cybersecurity is equal. Knowledge, tools, support needs are different for most companies and many SMBs just don't have the resources or budgets to dedicate to fully managed cybersecurity. An MSP not only has the tools and knowledge, they have dedicated resources that only work in cybersecurity. Most internal IT teams can't dedicate one person to handling all of their security needs, that is where an MSP can complement your team.
Reduced Costs:
If you’re a small and growing business, you may not have the financial resources required to add another member to your IT team. But, having an MSP on your side can be an effective cost-cutting measure for you. In general the cost of partnering with an MSP is less than hiring, training, and retaining a full-time employee. When you recruit a new full-time employee in the IT team, you will have to pay them a competitive salary every month along with benefits, PTO and equipment. When your IT team works with an MSP, you can scale your IT department as needed. This saves you considerable costs in the long term.
Expertise and Specialized Skills:
Your IT team may be well-informed about handling IT systems, but might not be capable of excelling in every specific area that falls under the category of IT services. MSPs complement the skills and knowledge that your internal team might not be as well versed in. MSPs typically have experts with several years of experience in their team. These experts are well-versed in different areas and have specialized skills. They may be able to help you tackle matters that your in-house IT team could have trouble with. For instance, large-scale projects and cybersecurity require high-level expertise and skills. An MSP already has a team of IT personnel with the right knowledge, skill sets and certifications for the tasks, and can help perform them in the most efficient manner.
Automation For Increased Efficiency:
One of the many ways companies use co-managed IT is to provide services they don't have the time or expertise to engineer. Managed Service Providers rely on economies of scale and invest heavily in automation. We automate many repetitive tasks to save time and money. We've done extensive work in the following areas: User account management, saves 10-15 minutes per account. Software packaging and deployment, saves 30-240 minutes per PC. Office 365 Stale Account Management, saves on licensing costs. An MSP can easily take over many responsibilities and automate daily tasks, freeing up your IT staff to focus on more strategic and productive activities.
Shared Tools With Lower Costs:
MSPs like us have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and many thousands of hours in it's tools. We provide our co-managed clients with access to tools they would not have the time or budget to develop on their own. These tools help provide enhanced security, improved productivity and visibility into a company's systems.
MSPs Allow You to Focus on Your Business:
One of the biggest advantages of working with an MSP is that they can take care of the day-to-day IT management tasks that take up the majority of your in-house IT department’s time. Whether it is simply taking daily backups or something complex like working with your network or even backend tasks, an MSP can handle it all. This allows your IT team to dedicate their time and effort to more productive aspects of the business. They can, therefore, focus better on large-scale deployments, optimizing your IT environment, or exploring new technologies to help you gain a competitive edge.
MSPS provide a valuable partnership to you and your IT team. As your business grows, so does its technology needs. Business owners may have a hard time deciding on whether to add more staff to their internal IT team or to outsource some of their IT functions. One misconception in this regard is that it has to be either one of these choices. In truth, you can choose to have the best of both worlds, dedicated on staff IT and an MSP to partner with to help your business run smoothly and scale. If you're thinking that co-managed IT services might be beneficial to your business, talk to us. We can help you decide what services and level of support would benefit your team.
