Technology

Streamlining Your Business Operations with Managed IT Services: Unlocking Growth and Efficiency

IT Services

Over the last few years, household names such as J.C. Penney, and Brooks Brothers, had to file for bankruptcy. The pandemic forced temporary closures on businesses both small and large, and many companies folded completely.

And March 2022 saw 2.5 million individuals unable to work, or working less hours due to the financial effects of Covid.

The importance of streamlining a business has been made abundantly clear since the start of 2020. Not only has industry, in general, had to cope with lockdowns and remote working, but inflation has soared and many experts are predicting a recession to hit in 2023.

Many businesses are recovering now, but thousands will still go under as they fail to grasp how to be more productive. In a business world dominated by ecommerce and online transactions, streamlining IT operations can help you to be more efficient and grow.

Can managed IT services help your business improve efficiency?

Managed services providers are becoming increasingly important to small and medium businesses. MSPs are used by many global corporations, but now even small firms are finding out some of the advantages.

If you look at a typical MSP such as Greenloop IT Solutions for instance, you will see their services include cloud solutions, network monitoring, and data recovery.

A good IT MSP will help a business to run smoothly by minimizing server downtime, keeping software up to date, identifying security risks and patching them, and advising on storage and backup options.

Businesses can run smoother by outsourcing IT services so that your permanent staff can concentrate on their main tasks. Instead of being pulled away to attend to network problems, or join focus groups, your IT staff can continue to perform their main duties. An MSP can instead be used to manage the IT infrastructure as a whole, and even create a plan to enable a business to grow in the future.

One vital area for any IT specialist is to be able to construct a disaster recovery plan. An MSP may be able to provide cloud storage or other forms of data backup.

If your business should suffer a severe problem causing downtime or data loss. A disaster recovery plan will enable your employees to get back to work quickly.

Why should you pay for managed IT services to support your business?

If you are a very small business then you may have one employee who can handle your IT needs in-house. But, many businesses need more assistance in the IT arena.

Staff leave, they get sick, and they go on holiday. Any modern business needs constant IT support. Managed services providers help to improve customer service by ensuring data breaches don’t happen, and systems don’t suffer from downtime.

An MSP can help your business streamline by integrating systems and ensuring they are compatible and scalable. For future growth, you need an IT infrastructure that can scale with your business. An MSP can help in this area by reviewing and analyzing software and hardware products. They will get an understanding of your business so they can recommend technology to improve efficiency.

Why not carry out IT tasks yourself?

If you are operating a business with just a few employees, you probably won’t need managed services. However, when businesses reach a certain size, their systems become more complex, and there are more demands on networks.

There are tasks such as SEO that you might be able to do, but it is far more efficient to hire a specialist agency instead. The same could be said for MSPs. You can put together an IT team to handle the internal maintenance on your networks, and update software. But, financially speaking, it may be far more cost-effective to outsource.

Outsourcing means you won’t have to go through the process of finding new employees every time one leaves. You won’t need to worry about training to keep up to date. Your business will need less office space as your MSP works remotely with occasional visits. And other expenses such as 401(k)s, health care, and holiday pay, won’t be of concern.

This isn’t to say that an internal IT specialist isn’t worth having. But, using MSPs gives you more cover and often far more experience. An in-house IT specialist is a great idea for dealing with employees who are having hardware or software issues. Yet, an MSP can monitor your network 24/7 which is essential for securing networks from breaches and hackers.

How vital is cyber security for businesses today?

You might believe that only big corporations get targeted by hackers, but anyone online is at risk to some degree. In 2021, around 22 billion data records were hacked. It is believed that 64% of businesses have encountered some type of cyber attack.

Consequently, the following question; who needs cyber security? Has one answer; everyone who ever uses the internet.

Even the home internet user should have anti-virus software, use a VPN, and turn on their firewall. For businesses, cyber security is no joke.

An IT MSP will often offer cybersecurity solutions as part of its list of services. These range from providing cloud backups to disaster recovery to network monitoring. They sometimes use white hat hacker techniques to probe networks for weaknesses that cybercriminals could use as entry points.

Cybersecurity can be a vital IT service from an MSP. It could save your business from receiving harsh penalties. A number of famous brands have been hit with fines for data breaches, including Uber, Equifax, British Airways, and Marriott.

Summary

Using MSPs will free your workers to focus on the assignments they need to complete. An MSP can help with advice and the installation of new systems and hardware. This can make the workplace more efficient, and help with productivity.

With increased uptime, reduced security risks, and software updates in place, your business will run more efficiently. And while an on-site IT specialist is a good idea, an MSP can stop your employees from being overloaded by taking over management of the IT infrastructure. This will help your business to run with fewer problems, and therefore increase profits.

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