5 Reasons You Should Use Managed IT Services

In today's fast-paced, rapidly evolving business environment, SMBs can often struggle to maintain the complex technologies their businesses rely on. With resources stretched thin, it's all too easy to miss a critical update or fail to spot a looming security issue in a timely manner, and that can spell disaster.

Managed Services, however, changes the game, allowing businesses of all sizes to leverage the capabilities of trusted experts who are capable of providing robust 24/7 monitoring of all critical systems and respond to threats and issues in a proactive manner, which helps keep downtime to an absolute minimum. Here are the five key advantages associated with utilizing Managed Services:

Resources

SMBs are often constrained by modest budgets, and simply cannot afford to hire top-tier in-house IT expertise that is knowledgeable in every system the company makes daily use of. By partnering with a trusted Managed Services company, however, you don't have to. Your team can focus on internal process, while relying on your Managed Services company to provide the monitoring, management and troubleshooting of technology.

Proactivity

Unfortunately, because of resource constraints, many SMBs are forced to adopt a purely reactive stance to technological anomalies or intrusion attempts. This reactive approach can lead to damaged equipment, downtime, lost productivity, and worse.

The good news is that by partnering with a Managed Services provider, your company will be able to adopt a much more proactive stance, relying on your MSP to monitor your network and alert you the moment that a network issue or intrusion occurs, which allows for rapid response.

Productivity

Every time your network slows down, a computer gets the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death", or a drive crashes, your business productivity takes a hit. In an age where every second counts, any loss of productivity can be critical.

An MSP can help in this regard by providing a robust monitoring and alert system that improves your tactical awareness and allows you to solve problems, leveraging management software and troubleshooting expertise as needed. This means issues will be dealt with immediately and some issues can be caught before they turn into a major problem. Better productivity equals more bottom line.

Efficiency

Systems that are well-run and well-maintained, kept free of viruses, and are running all of the latest updates and security patches just run better and more smoothly than those plagued with the sorts of issues we just mentioned.

Sadly, your internal employees may not have the time or the resources to properly maintain the systems your business relies on. With help from a trusted MSP, however, that problem is solved, and every aspect of your business, from top to bottom, runs more smoothly and efficiently.

Predictability

The simple truth is that sooner or later, even the best systems fail, and they almost always seem to fail at the worst possible moment. This can create a budgetary nightmare for any company, but SMBs tend to feel the pinch even more keenly.

When you work with a Managed Services Provider, however, your costs are much more predictable and thanks to robust network monitoring, most hardware issues can be caught and corrected long before there's an outright system failure, which minimizes downtime. In addition to that, a good MSP can help you plan for the incremental replacement of outdated equipment, which helps to ensure that you're never faced with a massive expense all at once.

Conclusion

Today's rapidly changing business environment presents significant challenges to businesses of all shapes and sizes, but the challenges SMBs face are particularly daunting. Managed services provide SMBs with the tools, resources and expertise they need to increase productivity and efficiency to boost their bottom lines, and the ability to do so in an affordable, budget-friendly manner. It just makes good business sense.