Managed IT Services make it easier for businesses to deal with complex IT processes and tasks. Choosing an IT Managed Service Provider that is most suitable for you is not very easy. You need to be aware and clear about what your IT needs are in order to find the perfect Managed Services Partner.
Top Factors For Selecting a IT Managed Service Provider:
Here we are going to discuss the key factors or criteria for choosing an IT Managed Service Provider.
Identify Your Needs
While choosing a Managed Services Provider you must be fully aware of your IT needs, i.e. what are things your business is lacking so that you can have a list of requirements to look for. Prioritize your requirements and needs so you know what you have to look for as a “must” in your MSP. This would make the decision of picking your most suitable MSP much easier. It would also save you from any inconveniences later on.
Work Culture
It is a factor that is often overlooked but is extremely significant. The MSP must be approachable and easy to communicate with. Having a good work relationship with your MSP greatly boosts productivity. When you show your trust in them, it is bound to create an adequate work environment and better cooperation between your in-house employees and MSP’s staff, paving way for an increase in the quality of handling operations and tasks. After all, you are stepping in for a long business journey with your MSP, and not a one-off involvement like in the case of a break-fix solution.
Scope of Support
Get to know what’s the scope of Support of your potential MSP. Whether it provides onsite support along with 24×7 remote Support, since you may need them suddenly for immediate support or assistance as you can encounter an unexpected network or system error, downtime, or a security issue at any moment. So it is very crucial they are present for you all the time.
Industry Experience
An experienced MSP is expected to deal with unexpected or complicated problems much better than an MSP that is relatively new in the market because the experience of the Service Provider would mean that they have encountered similar problems in past with various clients and have figured out ways to handle them quickly. So preferably, go for an experienced Managed IT Services Provider.
Past Customers’ Approval Rating
You must be aware of what the MSP’s reputation is with its older clients, and how much approval rate it has from its clients. So you should always ask them for some proper references before you hire them as your Service Provider. If it turns out their past clients were mostly satisfied with their service, there are better chances of you not having to be disappointed after availing of their Managed Services for your IT infrastructure. Remember that the quality of service may sometimes be very different from what the MSP is assuring you of, therefore it is always good to get some past customer references.
Facilitates Sustainable Business Growth
As the modern IT business environment changes every second, it is vital that your MSP has the tools to adapt to your changing needs and it can help your company during the times when you are scaling your business operations to adjust to the market demands or for sustainable growth of your business.
Business Continuity Solutions
One of the most important factors to consider is that your MSP must have effective Disaster Management Solutions to ensure your business continuity amidst the worst of disasters and to keep your business functional, with minimum financial and data losses.
Service Portfolio
Knowing your prospective IT Managed Service Provider’s portfolio is very important. Discuss with your potential MSP what services are included in their portfolio. The skillset of your MSP ideally must be vast and should tick all the boxes from managed cloud expertise, security monitoring, app management, besides handling regular maintenance of your technology infrastructure.
Expertise
Inquire about what the technical specialty of your service provider is and what makes them different or rather stand out from others. It is something you might want to know before opting for it as your technology partner. Also, ask if their employees are certified and whether they have some good amount of experience handling all types of Cloud environments.
Proactive Approach
Your IT Managed Service Provider should be proactive in dealing with your problems so as to minimize downtime. Is their response time satisfactory and quick enough to save you from unwanted delays in operations – is a factor that matters.
Other Factors
- In today’s business environment scenario it helps a great deal if your MSP has a global reach in order to help the expansion of your business into larger demographics, and giving a better scope of growth.
- Be sure that the SLAs with your Provider make sense to you. Try to reach an agreement on a performance-based Service Level Agreement with your prospective MSP.
- See if their pricing models are flexible enough to accommodate your budget.
Closing Thoughts
All Managed Service Providers are not the same and there are times when there is no good or bad MSP but rather it is a question of which is the “right” MSP for you that can give you the solutions tailored to your customized requirements and needs. An MSP that is most suitable for you is the one that fits into all your necessities like budget constraints, the scope of your business as to whether you own a large-scale or a small-scale business, your preferences in terms of how much control over your IT environment you want, etc. So it is really a matter of choosing the most suitable Managed Service Provider. We at Synergy IT Solutions have the latest and up-to-date technology solutions and have an experience of 3 decades in the IT and Software industry. You may give us a call any time of the day throughout the week for a free consultation regarding your IT needs.
