As your business grows, the digital era of technology innovation presents just as many challenges as it does opportunities. Whether you have in-house IT or outsource your IT needs, it’s important that you have the right IT resources in place for your unique business. The benefits of managed IT services can be many when you partner with a capable IT services provider. However, if your IT team lacks the technical expertise and business knowledge necessary to support your needs, it can be difficult to understand what technology investments to make and when.
A best-fit Managed Services Provider (MSP) can help you get a clear picture of the business value of your technology, hidden IT security and operational risks, and actionable opportunities for improvement. Growing businesses are increasingly leveraging outsourced IT services to guide them along the path to digital transformation and business innovation. Most of these companies do not have the internal resources or budget to handle all aspects of their IT needs successfully but understand the importance of effective technology management for driving business resilience and success long term. The following sections explore why your business needs managed IT services and the benefits you can realize by working with a capable MSP.
Why Your Business Needs Managed IT Services
It’s clear that technology is a key driver for business innovation and success, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Growing businesses are leveraging tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to integrate applications, consolidate systems and data, enhance reporting, and streamline business operations, overall improving real-time decision making while reducing risks and hidden costs.
When weighing the value of IT investments, SMB leaders consider ease of use and trustworthiness of the vendor to be the two most important factors guiding their decisions.
Chief Financial Officers are tasked with balancing investments in human resource capital, meeting customer expectations, retaining current employees, and continually evolving the company’s approach to IT security while enhancing employee productivity along the way.
The Benefits of Managed IT Services
When you choose the right outsourced IT solution for your needs, you can spend more time focusing on your core business and less time managing IT. In addition, proactive IT consulting and support services enable your employees with the technology tools and IT resolution they need to improve customer satisfaction and help drive more revenue to your bottom line.
In fact, the 2020 Salesforce Small & Medium Business Trends Report found that 55% of growing SMBs say technology continues to drive their customer interactions, and 51% consider technology to be the key contributor in growing their customer base.
In other words, successful IT is essential for both delighting current customers and attracting new ones. The relationship between your customer experience and your technology experience is more integrated than ever before and sets the stage for your organization’s ability to stay open and in business long-term.
The disadvantages of managed IT services can outnumber the advantages if you are not strategic about selecting the right IT partner for your needs. However, when done right, switching from in-house to outsourced IT services can provide the following benefits for your organization.
Work with an IT Partner Who Understands Your Business & IT Infrastructure
You are an expert in your core business, not your technology. Your IT team should be capable of bringing new technology to the table that cost-effectively supports your initiatives while driving value long term. According to a January 2021 S&P Global Market Intelligence Special Report, the top 5 roadblocks facing companies as they work towards business initiatives are:
- Lack of a formal IT budget
- Issues around business processes
- Absence of the right skills for new technology
- Outdated IT infrastructure
- Lack of a clear IT strategy and roadmap for success
Your IT team or outsourced provider needs to have both a technical understanding of your IT infrastructure and a business understanding of your organization’s initiatives, opportunities, pains, and hidden risks.
It takes an IT professional who has the skills of a qualified Chief Information Officer (CIO) to outline an IT roadmap and budget that both remediates your business pains and risks and aligns with your goals 18-24 months down the road. Someone of such technology and business caliber is generally too expensive to maintain in-house but can be an available resource when you outsource to a provider that offers Fractional CIO services.
Maximize the ROI of Technology Investments & Reduce Time & Money Spend on IT
In the past, internal IT departments and less-advanced IT service providers have been notorious for overspending time and money on IT. Generally, these miscalculations were a result of a lack of strategic planning and communication between IT and the company’s key stakeholders. Today, IT providers are evolving to become increasingly integrated into the process of business strategy planning and execution.
Strategic IT Planning & Value-Driven IT Decisions
Successful MSPs drive success for their clients and are intentional about the technology they implement and when. With the input of your executive team, they work to uncover and understand your organization’s risks, opportunities, needs, and restrictions, from compliance regulations to seasonal business activities. By taking a holistic approach to IT planning, proactive IT outsourcing providers can predict and address your business needs before they cause disruptions such as business downtime or delayed technology implementations.
Specialized IT Experts & Experienced Business Leaders
Their breadth of specialized resources and experienced business professionals provide your business with the foresight and real-life experience necessary to understand what you really need from your IT solution at each stage of your growth and business lifecycle. Here are a few of the ways an effective IT provider can help you maximize the value of your technology:
- Cut asset ownership costs by switching from on-site servers to the cloud
- Reduce internal IT staffing costs and inefficiencies
- Increase employee productivity & technology buy-in
- Streamline business operations using AI and integrated automation
- Accessibly consolidate business systems and valuable data for better reporting
- Utilize advanced security features and data controls built into solutions like Microsoft 365
- And more!
Continually Measure and Refine IT Efforts for Success
One of the most important benefits of managed IT services is access to resources that can provide the continual measurement of your business technology progress and suggestions for refining your IT approach. Your business will change and so will your needs. However, not all changes are planned. You need to know that your organization can be agile and keep the business running as you encounter roadblocks and work towards new initiatives.
It’s important to have IT KPIs in place that accurately measure how successfully IT supports your needs across all aspects of your business technology environment. If you’re investing in cyber security awareness training for your staff, your IT team should be able to report on the effectiveness of the solution over time and advise your company’s leadership team on what to do next.
Our managed IT services offer the companies we work with access to a team of IT experts with a breadth of business knowledge and technology expertise. We have worked with hundreds of businesses to provide the IT resources and support they need when they need it. If you want to learn more about how we help businesses like yours maximize IT’s ROI, schedule time to speak with a member of our team.