Regardless of what your business does, there is a good chance that it relies pretty heavily on technology. When that technology falters, so does your business. Sure, this might be for a couple hours at a time, but it all adds up and has a major impact on the success of your business. Many organizations have outsourced their IT support and management, but could benefit from a more proactive approach than the one they currently employ. Today, we will take a look at some of the priorities that businesses should consider when choosing an outsourced IT provider.
Proactive Management
One of the most crucial elements of a good managed IT services platform is the proactive approach to management. This is due to the fact that by mitigating downtime, an organization will be able to function more efficiently. When we talk about proactive management, we are mainly talking about constant remote monitoring of a network and infrastructure.
While some outsourcers will just remotely fix problems that an organization reports, a managed IT services provider will continually monitor the network and infrastructure and use automation to ensure that all of a business’ IT is running smoothly. The whole strategy is to keep downtime to a minimum through conscientious care of the hardware and network using cutting-edge tools designed to automate many of the countless tasks that are needed to do so. The best outsourced IT services will absolutely include proactive monitoring.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Sometimes when a business outsources their IT support, they are left to find their own backup system. This can create unnecessary costs, as most managed IT service providers (MSPs) make a point to mention that their backup and disaster recovery platform is central to their offering; and why not? Controlling your data is effectively having control over one of your business’ best assets.
A well-functioning BDR should have the ability to backup all assigned data systems incrementally. That way the backup gets as much of your work saved as possible, protecting your business from data loss brought on by any issue, including ransomware, natural disaster, or simple user error.
Security Consulting
The traditional outsourced IT or break/fix vendor would never consider proactively helping a business avoid the litany of security threats that are out there today. Their business model suggests as much. With an MSP, however, your network’s security is paramount to their ability to be profitable. How’s that? The more problems you have with your network and infrastructure the more time and effort they need to take to ensure your IT is running as promised. As a result, for the MSP to succeed, your business needs to succeed.
The IT technicians that work in managed IT services are typically some of the most proficient technicians in your area. They can lend a great deal of knowledge and expertise to keep your business technology assets secure and running as intended. This includes security for your network and infrastructure, your mobile strategies, and even your cloud infrastructure and resources.
Patch Management
Another proactive measure that a good MSP will deliver is patch management. Most of your supported software continuously releases patches to keep it from being a pathway for infiltration from nefarious outside entities. A good IT services provider will ensure that your software is not only monitored, but patched routinely to keep vulnerabilities from forming. In fact, a solid MSP will ensure that all of your technology resources are updated and in good working order to improve uptime and help you get more out of it.
Vendor Management
Another service that is typically baked right into a solid managed IT services package is vendor management. For businesses that don’t outsource, they may not realize how much time their focus is averted while dealing with vendors. The MSP will act as a central point of contact for all of your technology vendors, ensuring that not only do they maintain control over the current functionality of your business’ technology, they provide an avenue for business owners and managers to focus on their duties. This extra time will provide better and more sustainable opportunities for operational success.
Getting the right managed IT services is crucial if you want to outsource your IT support and services. On top of the services that were listed here there are several more that work constantly to keep your business’ technology up and running smoothly. If you would like to talk to one of Data Net’s consultants today about getting an outsourced IT provider you can trust, give us a call at (760) 466-1200.
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