10 reasons why Managed Services delivers more than technology

Summary

This 2015 post sets out ten reasons an outsourced Managed Service Provider (MSP) delivers more value than an in-house technology team alone, covering knowledge depth, accountability, security, budgeting and strategic advice. It is written for business owners and operational leaders who are weighing the cost and risk of building an internal IT function against engaging a specialist provider. The core argument is that a good MSP consolidates responsibility for services under a single accountable partner, converts unpredictable capital spend into a scalable operating cost, and gives a business access to a broader base of expertise than any single hire could provide. The reasoning does not depend on any product, price or statistic that has since changed, so it still applies to a business evaluating managed services today.

Key facts

Article

You didn’t start your business to manage the technology that enables you to run it. So why are you? Traditionally, accessing specialist technical staff was challenging. Even if you could build the business case to justify them, finding and retaining them was problematic at best – then there were the knowledge leaks created by moving staff, and the continuity issues when they disappeared on holidays. Today, there are specialist Managed Service Providers (MSPs) that deliver the day to day technology and communication tools you need to run your business efficiently. They are service-driven organisations that can augment many of the roles that a CTO would historically have to manage – they help mitigate your technology risk, provide access to the specialist resources you may struggle to justify as employees, and provide scalable and flexible solutions as predictable operational expenses. The benefits MSPs are more far-reaching than a simple help desk or network manager. A few benefits of the key benefits identified by customers include:

1. **A Stronger Knowledge Base
   ** One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your IT is that you have access to a broader set of knowledge that’s both deep and wide, instead of just one expert’s opinion. A complete, certified staff base of help desk and specialist engineers can tackle numerous issues and advise on projects.
2. **Accountability
   ** The better MSPs will own the services (or at least the management tools controlling the services) that they provide. This provides a unique layer of accountability, or “one throat to choke”. If they are 100 percent accountable of the services, you won’t be caught chasing five different vendors or affiliates and wasting hours trying to resolve issues.
3. **Infrastructure Knowledge
   ** It’s important for businesses to have a resource that can be their central point of infrastructure knowledge. A good MSP will want to know how data flows through the company and how systems operate, and will be open to products which may be outside of their product line.
4. **Planning and Budgeting
   ** Technology planning is a complicated endeavour that takes into consideration things that can change in a moment’s notice. Being unprepared for the inevitable can ruin your budget. MSPs typically use a scalable monthly cost, allowing businesses to better budget and prepare for upgrades.
5. **Simple Reporting
   ** Give someone outside your firm a planning and budgeting role and they had best provide regular – and detailed – reporting on usage and activity. Your MSP can provide a single pane of glass reporting on issues, remediation and user activity.
6. **Improved Efficiency
   ** MSPs have generally invested in extensive toolsets which help identify, resolve and report on issues quickly and reduce the number of “fires” that arise. This results in less downtime and a better user experience, with fewer disruptions for updates and patches.
7. **Better Security
   ** Security is a major concern for every business. Protecting your data can be a full-time job, and may well be the most important role of an outsourced team. MSPs can manage and monitor your firewalls and antivirus, and assure that the latest updates and patches are applied.
8. **Infrastructure lock-in
   ** When investing in your own hardware and infrastructure, you become committed to that model for many years. Changing becomes a very expensive exercise – making infrastructure investments risky in a fast moving technology environment. When using a MSPs infrastructure, they are take on infrastructure investments and have teams of specialists ensuring the right solutions are being deployed.
9. **Easier Growth
   ** The better MSPs have a broad service offering to deliver even better value. From private cloud to network and unified communications, the larger specialist MSPs can provide flexible solutions to suit your business stage. By delivering these extended solutions as a Service (with predictable pricing), MSPs make it easier for you to build business cases for new projects and improve the ability for you to explore business opportunities.
10. **Strategic Partner
    ** One benefit that should not be underestimated is the access to strategy. MSPs invest heavily in ensuring their knowledge and expertise is a market differentiator – they know where the technology is going and how you can better leverage it for your business advantage. With the right MSP partner, you gain a specialist technology advisor.

These are just a few of the many benefits of working with a better MSP. The key is to find one you can trust, who listens and genuinely understands your technology objectives, who has the depth of resources you need, and is industry recognised. If the idea of having a single trusted resource as an outsourced team member appeals to you, contact our Managed Services team.

Related

• advanced infrastructure managed services
• managed services
• empower core netork dc interconnect
• connectivity

Frequently asked questions

What is a Managed Service Provider?A Managed Service Provider (MSP) is a business that takes on day-to-day responsibility for a customer's technology and communications tools, rather than the customer building and staffing that capability internally. The origin post describes MSPs as service-driven organisations that can augment roles a CTO would otherwise manage directly.

How does using an MSP improve accountability compared with multiple vendors?When one provider owns the services or the tools that control them, a business avoids chasing several vendors when something goes wrong. The post calls this 'one throat to choke' - a single accountable party for resolution rather than a dispute between suppliers over whose fault an outage was.

Does an MSP reduce security risk?The post identifies security as one of the ten benefits, noting that protecting data can be a full-time job and that an MSP can manage and monitor firewalls, antivirus and patching on a business's behalf. blueAPACHE's current emPOWER Security pillar covers this in more detail, see the Related links below.

How are managed services typically priced?The post describes MSPs typically using a scalable monthly cost model, which lets a business budget predictably rather than facing large, irregular capital outlays for infrastructure refreshes.

What does 'infrastructure lock-in' mean and how does an MSP avoid it?Buying and owning hardware commits a business to that investment for years, making it expensive to change direction. Under an MSP model, the provider carries the infrastructure investment and is responsible for keeping the underlying technology current.

Can a managed services arrangement scale as a business grows?The post argues that established MSPs offer a broad enough service catalogue, from private cloud to network and unified communications, that a growing business can add capability without renegotiating its entire technology stack.

What reporting should a business expect from its MSP?The post describes 'single pane of glass' reporting on issues, remediation and user activity as a standard expectation, rather than a business having to assemble its own view of vendor performance.

Where can I see how blueAPACHE delivers these managed service benefits today?The current emPOWER Managed Services pillar and the Advanced Infrastructure Managed Services page, linked below, describe blueAPACHE's present-day managed services offering.

Source

https://www.blueapache.com/blog/10-reasons-why-managed-services-delivers-more-than-technology/

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