Working with a managed services provider for your IT support can be a great way to save money, access experienced professionals, and free up your time to look after other aspects of your business.
However, this is only true if your MSP is offering everything that you need them to.
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Monitoring and maintenance
Monitoring and event management is an essential part of keeping your IT infrastructure functioning as it should.
Your MSP should offer a solution where your systems are monitored 24 hours a day, for two main reasons.
Firstly, monitoring means that any events that occur can be managed as soon as they crop up, which minimizes the impact that they have on your business because they can be resolved more quickly, and mitigating measures to prevent data loss or customer impact can be put in place.
Secondly, monitoring is designed to pick up on smaller changes of state across your systems. These changes of state could be early indicators of problems, so addressing them as they come up means that your systems function as they should, and downtime is avoided.
Scaleable support
One of the main benefits of working with an MSP is that you always have access to exactly the right level of support to meet your business needs at any time.
Say, for example, you have an upgrade project that is ongoing for six months. Working with an MSP, you could access the additional staff you need for this period of time and then go back to your usual requirement as soon as the project was over.
This is much more difficult to do and comes with significant administration costs if you were to hire your own in-house IT support.
Local presence
If you are operating your business from Salt Lake City, it’s important that you use a managed services provider located in Salt Lake City or at least one that’s close enough to get to you, should you need them, too.
A great deal of IT support will be carried out remotely of course, but if you require training for staff or help with a particularly complex issue, it can be absolutely invaluable to have your provider on site.
An agreed monthly fee
Working with an MSP that works for an agreed monthly fee, makes your life easier because you can budget much more easily.
You should have an agreed fee, which can be negotiated and changed as your needs evolve.
Focus on cybersecurity
It’s essential that your MSP has a good background in cybersecurity, as this is one of the biggest threats facing businesses at the moment.
Technology is evolving rapidly, and with that evolution comes new ways for cybercriminals to target your business. It’s important that your MSP stay on top of new threats as they develop so that they can keep your business safe.
Proven track record
Finally, be sure to work with an MSP that has a proven track record working with other businesses.
Speak with their existing clients, and get a feel for what it’s actually like to work with them, before signing a contract.
