Imagine this: you are having a great day at the office. Your staff is working diligently behind their desks. All of a sudden, systems are down. Employees are alarmed, the I.T. team is overwhelmed with more work than they can handle. In the blink of an eye, your business stopped functioning, and you didn’t even see it coming.
To minimize downtime, you quickly contact a couple of quality I.T. service providers and get a response that they can send someone in a couple of days. You are pretty much forced to accept the offer and call it a day until you get the issue fixed by a person whose expertise and quality of work remain to be proven.
After the hurdle, you face the aftermath of money loss over hours of potential productive work that went down the drain. At that point, you can only think how convenient it would have been to have expert, outsourced support available.
Real-Time I.T. Support as the Ultimate Backup Plan
If your technology is not working, even for a couple of hours, your business is running at a loss. According to IDC, a market research firm, companies lose 20 to 30 percent in revenue every year due to inefficiencies.
A major inefficiency is a bottleneck or a process that seems to be slowing down your business but tends to get overlooked until causing significant slowdowns and serious financial impacts. Many times, these bottlenecks come as a result of not adapting to new technologies or better solutions.
Having your technology up and running at all times with the help of outsourced I.T. support will minimize downtime and prevent potential bottlenecks from interfering with your business growth.
What does remote, real-time I.T. support mean for your business?
1. Cost Reduction
It is a common misconception that a real-time, remote I.T. service provider will cost you more than an in-house I.T. team. In fact, just by not having to pay for an entire team in order to acquire the breadth and depth of knowledge needed to manage modern technology means that, in the long run, you will be saving money. Besides, it is likely that you’ll still have to outsource at various times for issues that are beyond your team’s expertise. There is a huge difference between renting I.T. talent and hiring it permanently.
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) offer you access to a pool of talent that is knowledgeable and carefully picked by the company in various fields such as backup, networking, security, software integration, troubleshooting, and more.
Having a full-time, in-house I.T. team is expensive. MSPs keep your system updated, reduce hardware costs, and maintain a high level of security at a fixed fee. You can request as much service as you need and scale your business over time, without worrying about bills piling up.
The “Fifth Annual Trends in Managed Services” report by CompTIA reveals that 46 percent of firms that are current users of managed services have reduced their annual I.T. expenditures by at least 25 percent. The report also shows that 50 percent of organizations have saved somewhere between 1 percent and 24 percent in I.T. costs annually, which confirms the role of MSPs in reducing I.T. costs.
2. Improved Security
Many times, business owners confuse the process of keeping everything within the company with better security instead of with better control over internal business operations. According to the CompTIA survey, the top reason businesses were using MSPs was to improve safety. Cyberattacks are on the rise, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that security made it to top of the list.
The main reason MSPs offer better security is because outsourced I.T. teams provide 24/7 monitoring, immediate threat response, timely software and hardware updates, correct program implementation, and certified engineers who focus solely on cybersecurity.
An MSP team must follow safety and data management regulations that provide robust backup and recovery systems capable of protecting your systems and data better than an in-house I.T. team. This gives you peace of mind that your managed I.T. provider will prevent missing details and help when things get overwhelming.
3. Access to New Technologies
If an MSP monitors and manages your system, you can count on constantly upgraded I.T. systems at no additional cost or risk. You will have access to high-level support at an affordable rate.
4. Minimized Downtime
You can’t expect your employees to be productive if your systems are invariably slow or causing issues. An unproductive workforce costs businesses millions of dollars each year. Various factors can cause unproductivity, so you don’t want a slow network to be one of them.
Your MSP is there to guarantee that you won’t have to deal with system failures that affect your business growth by providing advances in network security and a proactive approach to potential risks. By minimizing technology-related issues, your employees can focus on doing valuable work and maintaining strong relationships with your customers.
5. Increased Efficiency
By outsourcing, the MSP helps centralize your network applications and servers into a single data center, which increases accessibility from your staff, regardless of their location. Facilitate secure mobile and web access points so that your stuff can work on the go. Your real-time, remote I.T. support desk can quickly access your systems and fix issues efficiently. They are just a phone call away whenever an issue strikes.
6. Focus on Strategic Initiatives
Your remote I.T. team is ready to assist you at any moment’s notice because they get extensively familiar with your business and system. Your I.T. environment is 100% under control by a managed I.T. service provider. You are dealing with an expert team that ensures your technology needs are met and are moving your business forward.
This allows you and your staff to focus on other tasks rather than addressing a technology problem on your own or having to deal with a technician continually.
It is important for your team to work with your service provider to outline strategic initiatives that have the goal of helping you outperform competitors. That way you can work together to make sure that your technology is focused on the same goals as your business at large.
7. Timely Resolution
Regardless of your current I.T. support model, there is nothing more convenient than real-time, remote I.T. support. You don’t have to wait for a technician to physically show up at your office as agreed or when you don’t have a need for them.
The question is, what happens when you need I.T. assistance urgently? Requests for support outside of scheduled visits often come with a higher price tag. With an MSP, you don’t have to worry about being invoiced for additional hours as you’ll enjoy the benefits at a fixed fee engagement.
It is not a surprise that managed services are on the rise. According to the CompTIA “Fifth Annual Trends in Managed Services” study, managed services was the second most popular business model in 2017. This means that more and more businesses are turning to managed I.T. services for their needs.
Choosing to partner with a managed I.T. service provider is an important decision for your business. Looking at the constantly-evolving technology landscape and the increase in cyber-attacks, it is clear that every business needs a stable I.T. partner to rely on for support and security.
The entire concept of outsourced I.T. support goes beyond the advantages mentioned above. These benefits barely scratch the surface compared to what our technical support is prepared to do to eliminate problems before they take a toll on your business.
JMARK employs many of the best technology experts in the nation in every aspect of I.T. support. It is our mission to provide great value for our clients by supporting them as they seek success. For more information about how our outsourced I.T. management services can save you money and stress, call 844-44-JMARK, email us at [email protected] or visit the Contact Us page of our website.
