What Are Managed IT Services?

Learn How Managed IT Services Can Help Your Business

Nowadays, it’s virtually impossible to operate a business of any type or size without technology. You use technology throughout all facets of your business – from human resources to accounting to customer service and everything in between.

Naturally, businesses can no longer afford to wait for critical devices to fail before fixing them. You need a proactive approach that keeps your technology operating at peak performance. Without technology, you’re unable to serve your customers, and thus you’re unable to bring revenue in the door. So what are your options?

1. Handling your information technology on your own
2. Outsourcing your information technology to an IT provider
3. Hiring an internal person or team to take care of your information technology

When you’re just starting out, options 1 or 2 might make sense, but as you grow and your information technology infrastructure becomes more complex, outsourcing helps you save a ton of money in the long-run.

How so?

Well, you’re passing over the responsibility of managing, maintaining, and protecting your systems to a team of experts who are available around-the-clock and have expertise in a range of technologies.

This means you can rest assured knowing they’ll always be available when you need them, and you’re paying a monthly fee (rather than salaries, benefits, vacation days, etc.) for an entire team’s skill-sets.

It simply makes good business sense to outsource your information technology to an IT provider. But it’s important to make sure you’re choosing a managed IT services model rather than a break/fix model.

How Do Managed IT Services Differ from Break/Fix IT Support?

Break/fix refers to the concept of resolving issues as they arise with no foresight into proactively preventing them. Essentially, you pay someone to come in and troubleshoot whenever there’s a problem.

Managed IT services, on the other hand, refers to the concept of offloading the monitoring, management, and maintenance of your infrastructure for a flat-rate monthly fee. This means a proactive approach is taken to minimize issues – resulting in less downtime.

Even businesses with an internal person or team often take advantage of managed IT services. Typically, this is referred to as “co-managed IT services,” wherein they pay a flat-rate monthly fee to offload the “heavy lifting” so their internal person or team can focus on more strategic initiatives.

Under a managed IT services subscription model, the business owns the systems being managed, but the MSP delivers the services necessary to keep those systems operational and secure. A service-level-agreement is used to bind the relationship – outlining the quality and performance metrics agreed upon.

For more information regarding managed It services, click here to get in touch with one of our representatives or call (409) 727-7080 today!