Why Should You Use A Managed Service Provider?

2. One person can only do so much

Say you can afford that one person. It’s unlikely that they’re going to have the skills to solve every problem that arises.

Skills slip over time and technical people without a team around them will quickly feel isolated. With so many potential problems out there, if a problem does arise, they could end up being out of their depth.

When we get a call, we put a number of people on the job. That’s because we have people with different specialisms and also to give the problem the capacity it needs to find a quick solution.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t have any IT people in your business. Having a manager in the business who has some IT knowledge may get things done quicker. But the existence of effective MSPs makes it less necessary.

3. Get a proactive approach to IT

In other words: With an MSP you’re paying for peace of mind.

IT services have changed over the years as they have become more and more integrated into everyday business life. Managed Service Providers take the place of the computer engineer who gets a call when something goes wrong and hurries over to make it all right again… until the next time it happens.

MSP’s will tend to take a proactive approach to IT as opposed to the reactive approach above. Of course, there will still be issues that need reacting to (more on that below) but we’d rather prevent them from happening in the first place. We know it’s not quite as good of a sell but it’s worth a lot.

It’s updates happening when they’re supposed to, a system that’s safety checked on day one, and the very best cyber security software in place to ensure your business is watertight.

It’s also about prepping your staff and enabling people to use programs correctly. For example, offering training as new software is rolled out and giving people a heads up about cyber security.

All this in theory should put your business in a much better place. But problems will happen. They always do…

4. Know who to call when an IT problem happens

No company can completely prevent problems from happening.

The reality is that things do go wrong (usually because a human’s involved) and in business, time is money, so it needs fixing. Fast.

There’s nothing more comforting than being able to pick up the phone and know exactly who to speak to at a moment’s notice. But it’s not just the speed at which you can get through to your service provider.

When something goes wrong with a piece of software or hardware, you’ll often need to communicate with the people who made it. Unfortunately, that’s often not possible for the end user as most of the software used in businesses is sold through those MSPs.

Fortunately, because of their established relationship, they can access the information and support you need.

5. They have the knowledge and tools at their disposal

We’ve alluded to this already, but your MSP should have the best tools for the job and will make it their duty to know everything there is to know about IT.

They’re also working with other companies like yours which means a lot of the processes and systems that work for their other clients will also work for yours. Solutions can be set up quickly and automated with little to no hassle.

As far as tools are concerned, they’ll rarely provide ones they aren’t already using. Which is about as good a testimony as you can get. If they think it’s a decent solution, then it’s probably going to be good for you too.

And they’re not just knowledgeable about the inner workings of software and hardware; they’ve also got their ear to the ground. As much as we’d like to think all updates are going to go swimmingly and solve our problems first time, they can create problems too. Being connected to the IT world means they’ll be the first to know if users should wait before getting the latest update or if something better is coming along.