Many businesses, especially those experiencing substantial growth, find themselves in a dilemma about whether to hire full-time IT staff or expand their internal IT department to address IT infrastructural issues. As a result, going into a partnership with an outsourced IT vendor or a managed service provider (MSP) is one way to address such a dilemma.
More and more companies are opting for a tie-up with an MSP, with the overall global MSP market forecasted to reach US$ 274 billion by 2026. Let’s look at the top five benefits of outsourcing all or parts of your IT department.
1. Choosing the right managed IT services provider
If you decide to go for an MSP to help you with your IT support needs, you should do your own due diligence in choosing the right managed IT support services provider. Specifically, you should check their technical expertise, including but not limited to any industry certifications that their IT staff possess to highlight their abilities.
Doing so will allow you to understand their staff’s technical expertise and also get information about your MSP’s areas of strengths and weaknesses.
2. Reduce your IT costs
Hiring full-time or part-time IT staff entails a substantial expense that companies have to incur. What’s more, in the case of IT support, more often than not, the likelihood of the support team sitting idle is on the higher side.
In this scenario, outsourcing all or parts of your IT department makes good business and financial sense. What’s more, with remote IT support predicted to be a fast-growing industry in the future, the majority of MSPs will have access to skillful talent to ensure that all your IT issues will be handled by someone knowledgeable and experienced. All this at a fraction of the cost of hiring and maintaining a full-fledged IT support team.
3. Ongoing system maintenance, backup, and monitoring
If you ever face a severe IT infrastructural issue or happen to experience a major system crash, you’ll only be able to recover data that has been backed up. Even though system backups are one of the most critical things to ensure business continuity, members of your IT department may neglect routine testing of backup systems or disaster recovery software.
When it comes to an MSP, you can be rest assured that they’ll take appropriate steps to test your backup systems and will also ensure that data is regularly backed up. They’ll also be monitoring your systems periodically and undertaking system maintenance tasks too.
4. Get access to consistent support at all levels
Your business will function better by knowing that technical assistance is available promptly and can be accessed by a simple phone call, email, or by logging a help desk ticket. Your MSP will have to adhere to a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that will specify a time frame by which they’ll respond to and address any IT issues you may face.
The SLA will specify their response times based on how urgent any IT issue you may face, rather than its complexity.
5. Get access to scalable services
Business owners or managers often find difficulties in hiring the perfect person for a job and know whether they’ll be able to support you now and in the future. As your company grows, so will your IT needs.
You may find it challenging to decide whether you should hire an IT team that will support your business through your growth period or whether you should hire staff for your current IT requirements and add more manpower in the future. Outsourcing your IT requirements will help you to access expertise on an on-demand basis. In short, you’ll get access to scalable services that will support you as your business grows.
