For most owners of businesses, the term MSP would have come up at least once in their lifetime.
A ‘managed service provider’ is commonly known as another business that outsources its services to other establishments, to manage a wide array of projects, tasks, and processes.
Typically, they would offer the majority of the IT solutions any organization needs.
Three Common Categories of Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
The classification of this service falls under three categories, as mentioned here. We discuss these briefly below.
- Staffing legacy: their focus includes installations
- Pure-play: their focus is on only one single management service
- High-Level: their services offer everything under the umbrella i.e. installations and necessary IT solutions.
Related Post: 7 Tips on How to Be an Effective Managed Service Provider
How to Do Business with an MSP
There will, in most cases be a contractual agreement between a business owner and a managed service provider or outsourced company, which will have detailed information about the metrics involved, as well as the requirements and performance.
The main advantage of hiring them is to take a load off your shoulders in terms of IT-related issues. Because they are experts at various IT services of all levels, they will cost you only a percentage of the amount you would normally pay to include an entire IT department in your company.
These can be one individual or a team of professionals with the right skills and know-how for automated processes, and various types of software.
As the typical IT tasks include anything from project management to hardware technician and more, you may need help and these opportunities help to offer significantly insightful solutions to many concepts within the business helping you to simplify things around the office environment.
Their responsibility will be to oversee the business processes, and technological systems help to prevent technical faults and errors such as software malfunctions, hacking, cloud-computing-based issues, and more from taking place.
Which Managed IT Services Do MSPs Provide?
Those that are specialists in IT, in particular, can provide an array of services for both large companies and corporations, as well as start-ups and small businesses. Some of the many services they can provide your business include:
- Data security
- Infrastructure management
- Cloud-based monitoring
- Mobile device management
- Remote monitoring and management (RMM)
- General technical and internet support
- User account access
- IT disaster recovery
- Cloud productivity systems
- Networks and server management
- End-user system management
- Customer help desk support
To name a few.
The great thing about this is they can provide all of the above, and more, via a remote solution, and as long as you work online and have a cloud-based system, they can assist you in every regard.
When you think about your organization, you would typically want to find ways to increase profits, and look for solutions for customer retention and acquisition, as well as staff management and retention.
Performing day-to-day activities, when simplified, helps to keep things streamlined. Besides outsourcing for the typical IT services as mentioned above, you can also get other professionals skilled in helping you out with other tasks, some of these could include:
- Email support
- Customer Service
- Backing up your data
- Technical support as and when needed
All under one roof.
How to Choose the Most Relevant MSP for Your Business?
Now that you have a basic inclination of MSP’s meaning and what it entails, perhaps you thinking about using them for yours, and not sure what to look for. Below is some helpful information to help you out.
Some of the essential factors to consider include:
Experts: As obvious as it may sound, not all of these service providers offer professionals a high level of experience and knowledge. When you employ people such as technicians, for instance, because they will be providing day-to-day services, you may want to consider finding the best in the business.
someone reliable and knowledgeable about your company’s infrastructure is a good place to start.
Proof of Performance: The second thing to look for is proof of performance. MSPs legally should hold a particular license or specific certifications to back up their claims of being experienced.
Before you choose one, make sure you look into this and ask them for previous performance reviews or proof of successful work completed.
Automation Technology: the organizations that outsource their employees, sometimes tend to include those who do better work manually, than they would within an automated environment. The risk here is that they may be overworked and not able to handle things.
Those that use the latest technology should be your top priority, depending on the tasks or projects at hand. This will ensure a more secure, efficient, and productive result.
Costs: the costs are typically dependent on the services you are looking for. However, this should not stop you from asking about this upfront. Some offer different pricing models upfront or a subscription fee you can pay every month.
Having a set cost will be the safer option as you can predict your budget and make sure you can afford it.
Conclusion: The Major Advantages of MSPs
To wrap it all up, what are the major advantages of MSPs?
Cost Savings: Most small to medium-sized businesses cannot afford to hire competent IT personnel to take care of all their needs. MSPs bridge the gap and allow these businesses to thrive and operate efficiently.
Have Access to Experts: Having said that, MSPs also allow these businesses to have access to experts that they would otherwise won’t. The wide range of experience by these experts will be very beneficial to those who avail of this type of infrastructure.
Efficient Response Time: Proactive and always 100% available support is also one of the perks of MSPs. This support is crucial to all businesses so there’d be as many as possible chances of downtime.
Readily Available Infrastructure: No need to build anything from the ground up. Most startups can’t afford to do so. MSPs are simply the way to go. So you may focus on other areas of your business.
