As small businesses continue to rely on IT services more than ever, many of them are looking to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to get an overhaul of their IT infrastructure. Through MSPs, their businesses are better protected and are able to enjoy more successes in the process.
This new phenomenon sparks many curious business owners. Whether you don’t know how MSPs help small businesses or the whole concept of an MSP is confusing to you, here are some important facts about them that help you in making decisions on whether they’re for you and how you can leverage them.
They Save You Time
Small businesses aren’t able to hire a full-time IT technician. But since IT is still such an important part to business operations, these tasks often get delegated to regular employees dealing with IT on top of other duties.
This creates an issue as IT and cybersecurity are niche fields with a lot of specializations. It’s highly unlikely that employees have the skills necessary to take on serious IT issues. Furthermore, if employees do make mistakes or are overworked, this can lead to more problems and can result in downtime, security breaches or other serious problems.
MSPs are a culmination of highly trained cybersecurity and IT experts. They are often remote offices and many are able to provide 24/7 surveillance. They also use the best equipment for the job all while charging you a reasonable monthly fee. All of this means if something ever goes wrong, you can expect MSPs to quickly recover your business so you don’t have to worry about anything.
This is in addition to freeing all of your other staff from having to wear IT hats and working on those tasks on top of their own regular duties.
They Save You Money
As mentioned, MSP payment structures are typically monthly based and are a flat rate every time. This structure may make it look hard to see where businesses save money, but there are recent statistics that can show how small business owners can save upwards of 40% on their IT costs by just working with an MSP.
The reason they can save you money falls into three core reasons:
- Small businesses that use MSPs never have to worry about getting their own equipment or updating it.
- Small businesses don’t have to hire additional staff and cover the other associated costs of having more staff, including salaries and benefits.
- MSPs also have scaled services so if one payment plan doesn’t work for them, a business can adjust their IT spending to fit their needs and budget.
They Offer Stronger Security
Time and time again, the current cybersecurity climate proves that small businesses are prime targets for cybercriminals. And because they’re small, and they don’t have the strongest of security, cybercriminals are able to hack into multiple businesses and get ahold of customer and business data.
MSPs offer stronger security because they offer reasonable prices and provide top of the line security that would take a lot of time and effort to put together. Furthermore, many MSPs offer training too that can prevent common cyber crimes like phishing and malware attacks.
Expert Advice
Because MSP business models rely on the number of clients they have, they need to be able to offer the best service possible. What this means is since they’re in IT – an ever growing industry – they must continuously improve as well. Everything from hardware to software and knowledge, these providers need to stay on top of those critical elements.
Small businesses however struggle to keep up with all of this on their own on top of their duties. So the fact MSPs can cover all of that and you never have to worry about it means that you can always get the best quality information from them at any time.
Their Services Are Customizable
The final fact to consider is that there is bound to be an MSP out there for you. There are many to choose from and they all offer flexible budgets and the services that you need. Also, some MSPs are even focused on niche industries as well like healthcare for example.
Because MSPs have so much customizability, any business owner is able to do the following:
- Use an MSP on a one-time basis
- Hire an MSP to handle periodic tasks like providing customer service during holidays or certain periods of the day
- Delegate IT jobs to the MSP while keeping other tasks in-house.
- Have an MSP handle every IT-related task
All in all one thing is for certain — they are well worth the investment and business owners will benefit from an MSP in any IT-related capacity.
Mtek Digital Managed Business Service
Mtek Digital provides help with virtually any business technology requirement. From IT services to cybersecurity, we’re capable of servicing the tech industry throughout Canada. Contact us today.