The domain of Information Technology has seen a massive evolution in the last couple of decades, to the point that businesses in virtually every industry now depend heavily on IT Solutions for their operations and activities. Add to that the rising competition in the market, growing at an equally fast pace. Although this has increased the scope of opportunities, it has also become quite a task for businesses to catch up with technological advancements and stay competitive. It has therefore become an absolute necessity that an organization should have an expert team exclusively focused on its IT operations and facets that deal with maintaining the IT infrastructure. It is here in this scenario that the relevance and importance of managed services come into the picture.
A Brief Overview of Managed Services
Managed Services are provided by an MSP or Managed Services Provider. With a Managed IT Service in place for your business, you won’t have to keep an in-house team of IT experts at all, and your staff can instead fully focus on being more productive and devoted to the growth of the business rather than looking after the IT operations since the Managed Services Provider would take care of your IT processes. Most organizations benefit greatly by outsourcing their IT department to Managed Services because not only does it takes the burden off their IT staff but also gives them cost savings in multiple ways like not having to train their own staff, or decreased expenditure on updating their equipment and software among other things, And hence the business sees a boost in development, gaining a competitive edge over its rivals.
Need for Specialized Managed Services
Now what’s more to it, is that while most companies employ Managed Services to look after their IT operations in totality, many others hire an MSP that looks after a certain aspect of their IT infrastructure. The reasons as to why some companies do not hire full-scale Managed IT services may vary, for instance, the needs of the business and their requirement may pertain to some particular area of their operations so they avail of specialized Managed services which deal in that field only. This is where we touch on the various types of Managed Services.
Five Types of Managed Services
There is a vast array of Managed Services, 5 types of Managed Services which we are discussing here:
1. Managed Security Services
Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) specializes in providing you with security solutions for your business. It includes firewall services, anti-malware, cybersecurity monitoring, threat analysis, and hunting among its several all-around security solutions to give your organization the most secure and safe work environment possible to perform its functions.
2. IT Support Staff Managed Services
Your staff may be unable to handle or address every kind of problem, either due to lack of experience, or simply since there might be occasions that certain tasks may be overwhelming or tricky and the MSP experts would be able to come up with a strategy with their specialized skillset. Hence the IT staff support managed service providers are lately in high demand as they would handle many advanced problems or everyday issues your employees may find challenging to deal with. Moreover, your staff gets the training along the way to handle the same issues.
3. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
In SaaS, your MSP would offer you certain software according to the requirements of your business after an assessment. Some of such Software could be MS 365, video or messaging software, or it can be anti-virus software, etc. with a monthly or yearly subscription plan. Under this contract, the maintenance, troubleshooting, and support of the software service are also performed by the MSP.
4. Cloud Infrastructure Managed Services
These services specialize in handling your organization’s cloud platform, and managing your online storage with full backup of data, eliminating any chances of data loss. keeping your platform up-to-date by performing required upgrades, Cloud Migration if needed, and also ensure smooth running of applications in the cloud. Although as cloud is expanding to include more functions every day, the scope of cloud-based services is also growing.
5. Managed Print Services
Getting your Print services to be managed by an outsourced company i.e. an MSP, would help you in decreasing your printing costs, You save on printer repair, support & maintenance, streamline your complex file and data infrastructure, and take off your burden of exhausting file management procedures.
Conclusion
Besides the above mentioned services, there are also several other specialized Managed Services available, for example – Tech Support, Managed Wireless, Mobile Device Management, and Communication Services, so clearly there is huge scope for different kinds of MSPs that are designed for particular type of tasks. Moreover, the sphere and demand for managed services is rising so rapidly it is estimated to be at USD 757 billion by the end of the 2020s, with North America currently being the larget MSP market and Asia-Pacific the fastest growing market.
