When it comes to overhead and allocating budget to various departments, outsourcing managed IT services vs. hiring an in-house team is a conundrum that most businesses are challenged with. However, an enormous array of perks accompany outsourcing all of your IT services.
Specifically, outsourcing IT dramatically raises the efficiency and productivity of your internal team. Outsourcing these services also boasts other benefits, such as significant use of capital investment, saved man hours, 24/7 support, and expert guidance on investing in new technology, which can increase efficiencies and hours.
Cost and Budget Efficiencies
Although, from a budget perspective, outsourcing to a third party might seem like a costly OPEX cost, the return from your monthly subscription is huge! The main budget efficiencies are:
- Predictable Monthly Costs: With a subscription-type service, you are always able to forecast what your monthly costs will be. Typically, managed service provider contracts also have an allocated amount of support hours. If you approach the limit of those set hours, you will be notified to avoid incurring unbudgeted costs.
- Scalability: Once you have a regular support services contract executed, should you experience growth or just find that the services are not meeting your needs, you can add services and hours a la carte, which is a massive benefit to businesses in growth mode.
Security Benefits
Data protection and security solutions are huge aspects of business that must be addressed and managed. Every day, huge corporations experience data breaches leading to customer dissatisfaction, embarrassing statements, and exposure to poor data practices.
The cybersecurity world is constantly evolving to keep up with the evolution of malicious practices and data theft. It is best to let an expert guide you through the best possible practices in cybersecurity and data management.
Regular Security Updates
Malware is constantly evolving; therefore, the monitoring and security updates to counterbalance are also in a continual state of upgrade. Understanding security solutions upgrades is a full-time job, and it is advisable to defer to the experts focusing on this niche.
Proactive Monitoring and Threat Protection
With a managed IT service provider, your small business has the peace of mind of 24/7 support. Most monitored services have a 24/7 support line and monitor your system automatically throughout your off-hours if you have them.
Typically, IT support services are under a service level agreement (SLA) in which they have guaranteed uptime responsibilities, so you know that you will likely not experience costly and inconvenient outages.
Compliance with Industry Regulations
Data management best practices are continually changing to reflect new security guidelines regarding storing and handling confidential and financial data. An expert company will be able to guide you through this process and ensure that your regulatory compliance is entirely up to speed with current guidelines.
Disaster Recovery Planning
It is not something that we like to plan for, but disaster recovery is an essential part of IT management. Having a strategy in place to resume business after a disaster is imperative. Managed IT service providers are seasoned at putting these plans together.
Malware and Phishing Training
Unfortunately, malware and phishing scams continue to increase and get more clever, staff and employees require constant training on how to identify and avoid these harmful scams.
Managed IT service provider firms will also be able to strengthen your email parameters so most of the malware will be virtually quarantined before it ever hits employees’ inboxes.
Password Policing
One perk of having an IT management firm involved within your IT best practices is that they can develop regular password changes and implement two-step authentication for email access. Many insurance firms require this now, so you can have your trusted IT partner manage this process and walk unsure staff members through the steps.
Access to Expertise and Advanced Technologies
Skilled Staffing
A managed services provider typically has an array of support staff and often in-house staff available for your needs. So you can decide if you prefer remote support or, in some cases, a full-time employee subcontracted to your office team.
Many employees might prefer to avoid calling for service and support, so having a real person in your office would be much more approachable.
Training and Certifications
One of management’s most costly and time-consuming aspects is keeping your staff trained, certified, and up to speed on all the latest material. A huge benefit of utilizing a third-party company is they have to take responsibility for the training of their staff.
Again, since IT management is not your primary line of business, it would be expensive and time-consuming to research how to train an in-house resource if you were hired directly.
Advanced Tools
A good managed IT services provider can guide your OPEX/CAPEX purchasing for new technology, software, and hardware choices. Your dedicated team will be able to present and recommend various options and upgrades for budgeting purposes and to support your continual growth.
Increased Operational Efficiency
Expedited Trouble Ticket Resolution
One of the enormous benefits of having a service level agreement is your managed ITs firm’s dedication to resolving open trouble tickets. This is due to your agreed terms and SLA conditions, but it ensures speedy resolution to annoying tech issues.
Centralized Management
Having one firm take responsibility and manage all systems, applications, and infrastructure greatly benefits a small to medium-sized business.
Streamlining Process
Helpfully, when tech issues arise, you can train your team to reach out immediately to your IT management team to help resolve the issue quickly. Once your team is used to troubleshooting in this fashion, it can help streamline any downtime caused by IIT-related problems.
With no IT needs to focus on, your employees can solely focus on your business needs rather than the administration of your IT applications.
Next Steps
As you can see, there are so many reasons you should outsource your managed IT needs! Call today and schedule a discovery call to see what you can take off your plate!
