What are Managed IT Services?
The Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) defines managed services as “the practice of outsourcing day-to-day technology management responsibilities to a third party as a strategic method for improving operations and accelerating a return on their technology investment”, typically for a fixed price. It is the proactive monitoring of computer and technology systems, the identification of potential or real problems, and, where possible, resolving these issues before the business is impacted.
Managed IT Services are an extremely effective way for your business to save money while simultaneously keeping your information technology systems running to their maximum ability. Managed IT Services are delivered by a Managed Service Provider (MSP). The MSP assumes ongoing responsibility for monitoring, managing, and resolving day-to-day issues on your behalf for a fixed monthly price.
Managed Service Providers have a vested interest both in keeping your network running smoothly and in providing proactive services that minimize problems. The more problems your organization’s IT infrastructure has, the more resources the provider has to designate to address them. This will drive your MSP to be more proactive in order to reduce the number of problems in your business’s IT ecosystem, resulting in a win-win situation.
Managed IT Service agreements commonly include proactive alerting, real-time optimizations, monitored anti-virus, monitored patch management, monitored cloud data backups, monitored scheduled preventative maintenance, remote support services, and sometimes Office 365 plans.
Why should I care about Managed IT Services?
Offloading routine management of your information technology systems to an experienced MSP lets you focus on your business. Many companies are still relying on “a guy” to handle issues as they arise while important management activities like monitoring and maintenance are left unattended. Without proper infrastructure monitoring and maintenance, your systems are at an increased risk of data loss, downtime, and other costly interruptions.
Customers increasingly demand IT security and policy compliance assistance from their service providers. One of the most common requirements for compliance audits is verified patch management and anti-virus. Without a proper way to ensure all devices are protected from the latest threats, and a way to verify devices are up to date you will be out of compliance in just about every IT compliance audit. There is no better way to ensure your devices are patched and up to date than to offload those tasks to a MSP. Catching problems while they are minor and providing the opportunity to make corrections before issues get larger saves time and money.
How can SandStorm IT help?
IT support and management for a fixed monthly price – it’s that simple. We provide all the benefits of an internal IT department for a fraction of the price of staffing one yourself. We reduce the business impact of IT failures by minimizing their occurrence, and any unforeseen issues are dealt with as a top priority. All aspects of your network can be covered: security, data protection, applications, and hardware.
If you have any questions about our Managed IT Services or any other IT question, please feel free to call the experts at SandStorm IT at 901-475-0275. We will do our best to assist with any questions you may have.