Why utilise a Managed Services Provider

Choosing to move from internal dedicated IT staff or juggling the IT yourself along with running your business, to using an external provider that takes care of all of your IT needs and issues is a big decision. However, we strongly believe that moving to the MSP model is the right choice for many businesses and here are some key reasons why;

Ensuring Best Practices

IT is a constantly changing landscape. It takes a lot of time, effort and even desire to keep even remotely up to date with the latest details. It only takes one vulnerability to slip under the radar for your computer systems to be left wide open and potentially exploited.

By taking on a skilled Managed Services Provider (MSP), no internal IT skillset is needed and you don't have to worry about this. Instead, you and your business can use that time and energy on doing what you do best, while the MSP ensures that your IT is operating smoothly and that your critical business infrastructure is fully protected.

Reduce costs

Bringing in an MSP may initially look like an extra cost that you don't need in the current climate, however overall an MSP should more than pay for itself through saving time and increasing efficiency.

During normal operating the MSP will be in the background, keeping your systems functioning at full speed, ensuring everything is safe and up to date and proactively fixing potential issues before they become an actual issue.

How much time, energy, opportunity and money is wasted when you have to stop working on what makes your business money and struggle to fix an IT issue instead? An MSP is a sound investment that just makes sense.

Specialist Skills

Does the important, new line of business application need an SQL database? What kind of software license does that require?
How do you update the file security so only the right staff can access the highly confidential documents?
How do you configure the network so that you can have guests on the Wi-Fi without exposing your internal systems to everyone?

These and lots of other things beside are the kinds of questions that many businesses need to answer. You can hire in-house talent to cover each particular aspect, but to ensure that everything is covered you would need a large pool of expensive people. How do you keep them busy all the time? How do you know they are doing a good or even correct job? An MSP does these things for lots of other people too, so you benefit from the economies of scale and the vast skill pool of that organisation.

No More Sick Days

When one person becomes the go-to IT person in an office, it may seem like a great half way house. It's a low cost approach as they're already on the payroll and they're easy to get in touch with, but what happens when that person is busy with their actual job, doesn't know the answer or is off sick or on holiday?

By utilising an MSP, you eliminate all of these issues. Your provider should have enough staff that any sickness and holiday simply don't affect your business. Any time you have any issues, they should be there to deal with the peaks and all with the same planned costs.

Scale and Projects

When something like COVID-19 hits and suddenly you have to enable all of your staff to work from home at short notice, will your ad-hoc IT person be up to the challenge? You need the scale of a partner to be able to handle the peaks in demand smoothly as well as the breadth of expertise to keep your business running no matter what.

Your chosen MSP will be able to help you when your business decides to take on a big project and employ 20% more staff suddenly. Why risk your crucial plan to either staff who are already busy with their day-to-day job or contractors brought in with no idea of the lay of the land. Your chosen MSP should know your infrastructure, your staff and what you are trying to achieve. They should be able to say where you may see issues and where you may experience a bottle neck and best of all, its all part of the service.

Recap

Here at Freethought we strongly believe that utilising an MSP should be amongst the first decisions that you make as a business when starting out. An MSP should help your business operate smoothly at all times, be there for you in emergencies and help you during the peaks. Obviously we hope that we're the right MSP for you, but even if its not us, we would really love to see you speak to an MSP who can help your business take off!

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