In this age and era of technological advancement in virtually every sector, businesses embracing technology reportedly become successful. While incorporating technology and other triggers towards business success is essential for increased efficiency and productivity, this only adds workload to your already full in-tray, and you may be overwhelmed and frustrated, potentially, you can end up abandoning your ambitions. Inasmuch as your prospect of ripping big is enhanced, your hands get full as well, and probably you may make deleterious mistakes. So, how do you integrate these essential services without compromising your freedom and business operations? Managed services are the answer to your worries, and we explain the concept of managed services in this article.

What are managed services?

This concept can be traced back to the early 90s when businesses started adding IT services to their business in a bid towards creating a competitive edge over their rivals. It all began with break-fix services. By the year 2005, managed services were fully refined and fine-tuned towards meeting business needs. Managed services is the act of deploying vital services in a business to be performed by highly qualified professionals with the motive of saving on expenditures and getting the best possible quality. Managed services typically kill two birds with one stone. It services forms over 90% of the managed services.

What is managed IT services?

This is a subcategory of the managed services often confusing with the bigger aspect since it forms the bulk of managed services. Managed IT services has its focus on Information technology and is the practice of giving your IT functions to a proven third party. Basically, you give out the rights and responsibility of handling information technology services of your organization to a different firm which is contracted to handle your IT needs explicitly. Outsourcing IT services can be due to various reasons, and your business situation may be unique, but often, the idea is to transfer the burden of maintaining top-notch IT services from the client to a service provider; thus it’s a broader form of specialization.

Service package in a managed service

Creating a list of services that overwhelms you and impair your focus on the business you may ask yourself, “Which of the following is not included in managed services?”  Being a customer-oriented initiative, managed services cater for tentatively all your IT needs. NYC managed IT service provider PowerConsulting, for instance, offers; IT security, IT consulting, hardware management, strategic planning, business continuity and much more specifically for your organization. Not included in the service list are those confidentialities that are likely to compromise the security of your business when entrusted to a third-party. Such include passwords and account data. Service level agreement will dictate the services you acquire form managed services, and this is mostly anchored on the premiums you pay depending on the package you choose to be suitable for your business. Fortunately, there is room for scalability, and you can increase your service level whenever necessary without much hassle.

What is managed service provider?

Are you overwhelmed with your IT functions or do you need high-grade expertise to handle your IT issues? Then probably you should contact and contract a managed service provider. A managed service provider is the firm that handles another companies services especially information and communication for a fee. The managed service provider typically take responsibility for an organization’s IT services from a remote location while in return earns periodical premiums. Usually, a managed service provider is endowed with trendy and sophisticated technology as well as high level of expertise to take care of your business needs as per IT concerns. The service is proactive and to ensure efficiency and transparency most companies use vendor management systems.

Why managed services?

• Cost-saving mechanism; hiring an in-house IT team can be quite expensive for most SMEs and this can significantly extrapolate your recurrent expenditures thus minimizing returns. Besides, with an MSP, you can enjoy the services of latest technology which your firm couldn’t afford solely.
• Ample time to focus on your core business- when you have an MSP, your worries of system failure and downtimes stop, this allows you to focus more energy on implementing and executing strategies that will see your business advance.
• Enhanced security; cybercrimes can be very damaging to business. A proactive approach mounted by MSPs spare you of such scenarios, and the safety of your company is guaranteed.
• Businesses involving the services of MSPs witness a tremendous increase in productivity and profitability since uptime is optimal and wastages are minimized.

Managed security service (MSS)

Online insecurity is a disturbing aspect associated with advancement in technology and businesses need to up the game to stay safe. Managed security services are thus proving crucial in the contemporary business world. What is managed security service? This refers to the act of outsourcing network security services to a third party company (MSSP). Although most organizations currently manage their security concerns onsite, plans are underway to avert this situation since it has been related to high vulnerability to malicious activities. Managed security services encompass 24/7 system monitoring, security assessments, and audits as well as the emergency response among others.

Who needs managed IT services?

Over the years, managed IT services were viewed as the big league thing either because of misconception or ignorance. Well, virtually every business needs an MSP. You don’t have to wait to get overstretched for you to acquire managed IT services. Taking too long to get MSP will probably lead you to very costly losses and you may not recover. Prevention is better than fixing, and this applies well to the IT world. Some of the pointers that will open your eyes to the need of contracting MSP include; lack of an in-house IT expert team, frequent system failures requiring you to bring an outsider to fix the problem and when you have an IT professional getting overworked and not meeting deadlines on most occasions.

Regardless of the size of your business, embracing technology is mandatory for your success. However, without the necessary management machinery, technology can be derailing and sometimes destructive thus the need for managed services can never be overemphasized.