10 Reasons To Hire a Managed Service Provider

More than ever before, small and medium-sized businesses are recognizing their need for a managed service provider for critical IT functions, particularly email hosting, storage, backup and recovery, and network monitoring.

Articles published May 16, 2018 by Steve Simpson

Picture this: an organization’s IT department is overwhelmed with requests, and has a hard time solving the issues in a timely manner. On top of that, they’re experiencing quite a bit of network slowness, but the IT staff is so bogged down with other problems, that it takes them a while to get everything running efficiently.

Managed Service Provider

The organization starts to look for help, so they can minimize downtime. They discuss the possibility of leveraging a managed service provider (MSP) to supplement their day to day needs and free up their internal resources to focus on more strategic projects.

This scenario is a common situation. Organizations are increasingly turning to MSP's to handle elements of their IT needs, as part of a collaborative arrangement with the internal IT department, according to research from IT industry trade association CompTIA. A lot of the times organizations don’t want to be the expert in certain technology services, but they’re willing to hire experts to provide a high-quality service level.

According to CompTIA’s 2016 Buying Guide for Managed Services, 64 percent of organizations are using some form of managed services.

The study went on to say that the managed services market is expected to grow to $193 billion by 2020, which is a growth rate of 12.5 percent.

What Makes Organizations Switch?

Over the last several years, organizations have become more familiar with managed services and are turning to them for management of certain IT functions, particularly email hosting, storage, backup and recovery, and network monitoring.

Whereas in the past, cost savings were seen as the primary benefit of MSPs, now clients are looking for additional benefits.

Here are the top 10 reasons from CompTIA:

Improve security.
Proactive approach to IT problems.
Better uptime.
Gain access to newer technologies.
Cost savings over in-house IT.
Peace of mind.
Free internal staff for strategic work.
Tap into cloud solutions.
Lack of internal IT.
Handle remote office IT.

With cyberattacks on the rise, it shouldn’t be too surprising to see security at the top of the list of MPS benefits.

From 2014 to 2015, there was a 38 percent rise in cyberattacks, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and 43 percent of cyberattacks target small businesses, according to Symantec.

Because cyberattacks are a growing threat to organizations, looking for a way to boost security is very important for every organization, and MSPs can provide that extra level of security.

What About my Existing IT Department?

One of the main concerns organizations have with managed services is that it would replace the existing IT team that they currently employ.

CompITA found that 53 percent of organizations that use managed services have kept their internal IT department the same, 15 percent had no internal IT department to begin with, and only 6 percent got rid of their internal IT employees.

Instead, what happens is that the MSPs allow the organization’s IT department to focus on more important projects that drive growth and revenue, and can keep the department running efficiently.

An article from CIO, elaborates on the benefit of a MSP to an existing IT staff:

“Bringing an MSP into the mix frees up existing IT staff to focus on more strategic projects.

“It elevates the IT staff and brings them out of the shadows within the organizations,” says Carolyn April, senior director, Industry Analysis, at CompTIA. “It allows them to focus on a custom app dev project or cloud initiative – something highly strategic. I think that’s a win-win for your IT staff.”

Is it Cost-Effective?

Yes! Managed IT services allow organizations to focus on core projects and strategic initiatives, instead of the day-to-day operations. This saves money in the long run, and additionally, many managed services cost less than other traditional services and staff. Organizations that use MSPs have access to 30 to 40 IT employees that are experts in multiple areas of the IT industry, including networking, storage, virtualization, compliance, security, software, etc.

What Happens Next?

So, what happened to that organization’s IT department that was struggling to get by? Well, because they chose to partner with an MSP, they don’t have to worry about the things that were dragging them down anymore.