More and more organisations are increasingly turning to MSPs as their strategic outsourcing IT services partners which remotely manage or deliver their IT services. It is mainly because of the expertise and technology offered by these remote IT outsourcing providers – something that most organisations lack to an extent. Basically a Managed Service Provider (MSP) is a remote outsourcer contractor that manages or delivers IT services such as network, infrastructure, security management of a client company by gaining full responsibility for said services of the client organization.
It determines by its own expertise as to what services are needed to fulfill the client’s needs. Outsourced Managed IT Service Providers are not based at the client’s location itself but are based elsewhere hence called “outsourced”, quite obviously. Then comes the question as to why should you be outsourcing IT services of your organization to an MSP. Simply because there are benefits of outsourcing your services to an MSP. If it’s a very large scale company then it’s feasible to set up your in-house IT service department but for a medium scale company it is best to outsource its services to an MSP.
Another point that is also worth pondering on is, how a Managed IT Service Providers business model works and how it benefits to the client organisations. Firstly they structure their business to offer services at a cheaper price than what it would cost a company to do those by itself, which is an attractive aspect for the clients because naturally they are always looking for their work to be done at reasonable expenses to manage their budget more efficiently.
MSPs can have specialists who, through A.I, automation and technology, get the work done for the client companies. If the client companies were to hire and pay these specialists individually and separately then it would prove overly costly to them so this is one of the major benefits of managed IT services. For this reason, even some relatively smaller organizations can quite easily afford outsourcing IT services to MSPs. What also makes the MSPs stand out is that when the company gives contracts to an outsourced managed IT services provider, that MSP focuses on meeting the requirement of their clients than on the job itself, it doesn’t matter how many employees it hires for the task while working from elsewhere since the end result is what matters and by any means delivering that, is what it aims for. To achieve it, if automation works better than human resources then it uses the A.I. functions at the forefront.
For instance, if an organisation contracts an MSP to handle support calls it would use automation tools for the task rather than hand it over to the workforce to make manual individual calls. What also differentiates an outsourced MSP from a traditional outsourcing company is, that in contrast to the project-based payment charged by the traditional IT consultancy service providers, the MSPs usually offer a monthly subscription-based service plan.
There are quite numerous Managed IT Service Providers in the market. Major players are Cisco, Lenovo, IBM, HP enterprises along with some rising companies like Accenture Inc. which are gaining prominence and reputation in this sector. The overall number of Managed IT services providers around the world including the less popular ones would account for hundreds of thousands. Some MSPs specialize in certain particular fields only, such as, say cloud management, while others specialize in a broader sphere of categories like remote monitoring, offering versatile management tools, providing network operations centric services etc.
These MSPs also bring in suggestions regarding adding or replacing the hardware, software, as well as applying these changes if or when given full control, along with already mentioned tasks of managing cloud technology and overall network services, as part of their services provided to their client organizations. The businesses when opting for outsourcing IT services of theirs, ought to choose their IT outsourcing provider keeping their needs and necessities, meaning personalized preferences, into consideration.
In recent years there has been a growth in the scope of services provided by Managed Service Providers. They have evolved to provide long term business planning service, as well as strategic services like using digital technology in the assessment and preparation of roadmaps for deeper more complex needs of the clients. There are constant changes in technology all the time and it is impractical to play catch up by investing in newer technology for a company to do by itself.
So by outsourcing IT company or IT services a business can instead leave this part up to the MSP as well, since the MSPs explore new technology and enhancements and are always prepared to support different client’s requirements. Hence by outsourcing to an MSP you have an easy access to the latest technology and that too without having to spend on buying it.
Other Benefits of Outsourced Managed IT Services Include:
- When you outsource your IT initiatives to the MSP professionals, your organisation gets to reduce large capital expenditure that comes with managing systems “in-house” (at your location) and which add very little to no value to your business because let’s face it, running an in-house team leads you to have significant sunk costs such as monthly salaries, office upkeeping and insurance and other such benefits to your individual employees.
- MSPs save your organisation the time on training employees, reduces your IT costs. MSPs can invest in technological expertise in ways that individual companies especially small scale organisations cannot, resulting in allowing your company to deliver more efficient and high-level performance.
- One very vital benefit is that the transactions which take place between the customer and the organisation are always secure. Naturally your customers pay you via different means of payment such as credit card and debit cards, cash, cheque or vouchers etc. Various different modes of transfers. Any form of transaction comes with a need for diligence. Now when you outsource this to a managed service provider that is familiar with Payment Card Industry security standards or PCI standards, you can be pretty sure that you have minimized the risk for your business, as well as your customers. Because the MSP will always make sure to implement necessary strategies as to ascertain that the sensitive and competitive information is kept secure and that your business is compliant.
Closing Thoughts:
Managed IT outsourcing services’ benefits allow the organization to focus on the core business like strategizing to expand the business while MSP takes care of the other sub-branches of the business by itself, so then the organisation need not micro-manage its activities which would otherwise be too time consuming for the business. Not only therefore the MSPs save time for the client organisation, but they do all those tasks better than if the client company itself were to do them. To sum up, the premium benefits of IT outsourcing MSP is it can help grow your business, save your organization unwanted expenses, and keep up your business with the modern technology. Although it is equally important to make sure you choose the best managed service provider which suits your business needs.
