The cost of hiring, training and maintaining an internal IT management system is often cost prohibitive for a small to medium size businesses (SME’s). It is often more more beneficial to hire an MSP. Fundamentally, an MSP becomes your IT department and provides your business with a well-trained and experienced team of technology professionals that can offer advice and help on multiple areas of IT. In recent years, business managers have become more familiar with MSP’s and are regularly turning to them for management of their IT functions, particularly storage, back up, recovery and network monitoring.
Outsourced MSP vs In-House IT
It is not uncommon for an organisation (particularly a large organisation) to hire an in-house team to handle their daily IT operations. This team are trained to the company’s specific needs and deal with its technology requirements directly. For SME’s, this isn’t usually a cost-effective option. Instead, they are better off outsourcing a team of IT specialists who can handle a bit of everything. However, developing an IT helpdesk in-house certainly has its benefits. With the right background, sufficient financial and time resources and continued training, the support team can build up in-depth specialised knowledge of their organisations particular IT set up and systems.
However, like everything, IT support training costs money, and to stay up to date in the ever-changing technological world, your staff will need to undergo regular training. You will also have to pay your staff a regular salary. If you are thinking of cutting costs by relying on just one or two people to run your in-house support, that’s not a good idea. Even the most experienced IT engineer will lack expertise in some areas. So, to cover all the bases, you are better off out-sourcing your IT support from an MSP.
What are the benefits of working with an MSP?
MSP’s offer many advantages over an in-house IT department. Primarily an MSP will ensure that your technology always works for you without having to over-invest in resources that could otherwise be used in alternative revenue-generating activities. As a rule, outsourcing IT support is generally more cost effective than developing an in-house helpdesk.
MSP’s also give you access to a larger bank of expertise. If you choose the right IT support company, their staff will be experienced in a wide range of areas. With expert staff and a proved state of the art technological infrastructure, a trusted MSP can drastically improve the efficiency of your business’s overall IT operations. Because of their expertise with cloud-cloud based services, they can provide you with a wide variety of IT options that are scalable to meet your growth-related needs. Further benefits include:
- Significantly reduces operational costs
- Frees up dedicated resources to help with strategy
- Cutting-edge cyber security
- Updated IT compliance requirements
- Peace of mind through back-ups
- An MSP applies best practices in IT
What about my existing IT department?
Working with a managed service provider doesn’t mean that you must abolish your existing IT team. A survey conducted by CompITA found that 53% of businesses that use an MSP have kept their current IT department. The MSP has simply allowed the organisations IT department to focus on more important projects that drive growth and revenue. So, working with an MSP can keep your current IT department running smoothly and efficiently.
How can Vital help?
The team at Vital have vast experience of working with and supporting businesses across multiple sectors and are perfectly placed to assist your business with its day-to-day IT support. As a service and solution focused provider, we deliver solutions that overcome a wide range of obstacles and meet business objectives.
If you are interested in working with a leading MSP to improve the efficiency of your business’s IT operations, give us a call on 0333 241 9301.
