As an IT executive, you may wonder if your technical assistance services are able to keep up with the increasing demands of your ever-evolving application landscape. It is an important question to consider and must, in all fairness, be part of your standard planning cycle.

Ensuring that you have the appropriate resources — who have been properly trained to provide the necessary end-user support — affects more than just system outages. It influences your profitability, scalability, and capacity to adopt new technologies. If you are facing resource gaps, or if your roadmap involves new competencies that would take too long to build from scratch, managed IT services might be the right call for you.

What are Managed IT Services?

Managed IT services are options for businesses interested in outsourcing their IT requirements. This could be a small business without in-house staff or a company that’s new to digital technologies, such as a traditional manufacturer or large bank. Managed IT service providers assist your organization’s technology stack for a flat monthly fee, although pricing models can differ. They actively track a company’s network, minimize IT issues, and troubleshoot network problems that arise.

With the development of cloud computing, the majority of IT tasks are now available for outsourcing. The managed service provider accesses networks remotely and implements resolutions for any computing issues with zero physical presence.

Among the IT services offered by these companies are cybersecurity management, comprehensive remote system management, monitoring of networks, helpdesk administration, as well as hardware and software upkeep. Managed IT services usually involve extensive reporting, allowing you to easily monitor your IT requirements throughout the year. Additionally, it removes the requirement for onsite assistance to a large degree.

3 Signs You May Need Managed IT Services

If you are unsure if partnering with a managed IT service provider is the right call for you, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Are you struggling to manage the high volume of service tickets?

It can be difficult for IT teams to effectively manage the plethora of user inquiries and issues via a ticketing system.

This implies that businesses do not keep account of the changes implemented or the solutions attempted to resolve past problems. Without a monitoring system for challenges, persistent and frequent issues (and their resolutions) cannot be tracked, so there’s no reliable way to determine which resolutions have or have not been effective over time.

Despite the apparent simplicity of setting up a simplified ticketing system, as your business grows and evolves, you will likely appreciate having access to more options and upgrades. You may desire the ability to identify the core cause of the problems that your users encounter, or you may prefer a hands-off approach. Therefore, managed IT services are a good idea for organizations with a sizable ticket volume and different ways of handling each ticket.

2. Do your internal IT skills match business goals?

From a user’s perspective, it’s essential that things just function, but your organization may lack the resources to perform all of the necessary tasks behind the scenes. This is particularly true for companies undergoing change – e.g., a retailer opening an e-commerce store. A great deal of planning and labor goes into having the IT environment seem effortless.

Therefore, regardless of the scale of your organization, imagining that only a small IT staff will be able to maintain all of your systems is unrealistic. First, they likely lack the necessary skills, and second, what happens if they resign, suffer from an unexpected illness, or go on vacation?

IT support entails more than simply putting out fires as they arise. True IT support encompasses not only hardware assistance but also networking, firewalls, servers, information security, and the genuine enhancement of business value.

Modern businesses require a team of IT specialists with intersecting skills to fulfill all of their demands, which is what managed IT services are all about.

3. Are you facing time and/or cost constraints for a specific project?

Fluctuating budgets are a prevalent complaint among IT professionals. Costs that vary annually or month on month make IT budgeting difficult (if not impossible). In addition, many businesses spend an excessive amount of their IT funds on essentials such as server hosting, leaving little for large-scale, strategic solutions and initiatives.

Time is an even greater IT challenge than budgetary concerns for several organizations. The more time they devote to inconsequential activities that do not generate earnings, the less time they will devote to genuinely significant and innovative activities. Even though tasks such as system maintenance and network outage recovery are crucial for the internal workings of an organization, they do not provide value to customers or push the business forward.

Managed IT services allow your company to outsource repetitive tasks so you can focus on value-adding technologies. Or, you can partner with specialists that can leverage technology to help grow your business.

6 Important Benefits of Managed IT Services

If you decide that managed IT services is the right call for your organization, here are the benefits you can expect:

1. A stronger focus on business goals instead of maintaining the status quo

A benefit of managed services is the fact that it doesn’t just allow your employees to zero in on the tasks for which they were recruited, but it also allows you to close any gaps as needed. A genuinely qualified managed services provider will offer a service model that facilitates the prioritization of business objectives.

2. Better preparedness for digital transformation

New technologies entail new problems, which your current IT team may lack the expertise or training to resolve.  This issue can be addressed by hiring new team members; however, the cost of recruiting and training new and skilled staff members can be exorbitant. The managed services approach allows you to employ a whole team of IT specialists for a fixed monthly fee.

3. Greater flexibility in the resource mix

Some managed IT service providers employ a shared strategy. Depending on the requirements of each project, you can delete or add experts from the organizational remote team as necessary. These professionals consist of technical, operational, constructional, as well as instructional consultants who can assist you in keeping your systems operational and maximizing their potential.

4. More savings and dramatically lower capex

One of the most obvious cost advantages of managed services is that they reduce labor costs and eradicate the cost of employing and training new IT employees. Most MSPs present a hybrid model of offshore and onshore resources, which reduces the median effective rate and extends your resource pool.

5. Easier scalability

As your technology requirements change over time, you will need to expand or contract your IT infrastructure to accommodate them. Modern cloud systems have been engineered to be highly scalable, but you might need additional assistance. MSPs can react in real-time to changes in demand, so you don’t have to be concerned about system outages or scalability issues.

6. Round-the-clock and global availability of support

You are never concerned about uptime since managed IT services offer flexibility around-the-clock, on-call alternatives, and weekend assistance (though it is important to note that these services are frequently offered as paid add-ons). Search for a global business that supports different time zones and provides 24/7 assistance, so you are assured that help is always available.

Conclusion: Choosing the Best Managed IT Service Provider

Over the course of this article, we’ve outlined a few of the attributes to search for in a managed IT services provider. The perfect MSP should provide an adaptable service model, accommodate different time zones, employ remote monitoring, provide an effective disaster recovery plan of action, and have a dedicated, singular point of contact. Ultimately, the decision to opt for managed IT services can prove to be a vital business enabler. Make sure to ask 11 key questions before finalizing your managed IT services partner.