Midwest IT asks: Why is Managed Services is the right answer for your network?
If you’re a traditional small to medium sized company, the idea of managed services provided by a vendor may seem an unlikely solution. But then how do you explain the trend toward outsourcing pieces of IT and in some cases, all of IT?
It has become obvious that some companies in the SMB market have nobody on staff that really knows or understands the technology they are using, even though they are running mission critical business applications. Businesses end up spending money needlessly on things they do not fully understand. Many times a break fix IT vendor may have a customer implement technologies that make more sense for them to sell($$$), than it does for your company to buy. The other issue can be the “IT guy” that wants to use your business network to test cool new technologies. Either way, it is not smart spending. In some cases they have very skilled operations people, but they are ready to retire. Those soon-to-retire staffers understand their network environment well, however replacing these people is difficult. The MSP generally does not have a large financial interest in a solution that you are attempting to implement, which gives you an unbiased staff of professionals the assist your company in making smart IT decisions for your business.
In the world of MSP’s or Managed Service Providers, there is a flexibility that companies can benefit from. In most cases with an MSP, there is a general “Flat Rate” cost for your IT Services. The best ones are able to package together their “best practices” and provide the client with a number to budget for their IT costs that allows them to stay close to their budget. This is a major benefit to the customer, as they do not have all of the peaks in spending that comes with non-budgeted break/fix IT. With companies that are using break/fix, you gain an engineer/account manager that makes decisions in YOUR best interest. In the case of having an employee that is soon to retire, an MSP can implement tools to get the clients network onto an MSP platform, while allowing the current IT person to continue their day to day tasks. Then, when the retirement happens, the customer’s network has a seamless transfer over. The users have a new help desk to contact for issues, but the environment stays the same. No large headaches or expenses.
In other cases, some companies are employing a full time IT person when they really do not need it. I have seen companies with 25 to 50 users pay $60,000 – $100,000 for salaries + benefits. Sample MSP pricing would be $40,000-$50,000 range for 25 users and 50 users would be $75,000-$85,000. These numbers usually also include software the client is also paying for. (Backups, spam filtering, offsite storage, etc) This means that companies are paying $20,000 to $30,000 more to have someone onsite every year. Owners and managers of companies this size should really look at this. With many of these companies, the owners or decision makers are made to believe that their network is “special” or more “complex” than most. In a few rare cases, there is a justified reason for having someone on staff, however, most times, this is not the case. Given that the MSP can provide a quality level of service, how much better would the company be doing investing that money back into their technology, instead of paying labor costs.
Business owners should at the very least do the research and see. Usually at no cost you can have an MSP come out and evaluate your current IT situation.
