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IT SupportWHAT IS 'I.T. SUPPORT' & 'MANAGED SERVICES'?There are some jobs within your Organisation, that for many reasons are better to be 'outsourced' to an outside third party which has specialist expertise in doing that job and doing it well: the 'managed services provider'. Outsourcing of I.T. is the contractual offloading of your specific I.T. operations to a third party I.T. Managed Service Provider (a 'MSP') who undertakes and performs these I.T. functions which are otherwise commonly/typically performed in-house. There are many different flavours of this type of outsourcing. The MSP assumes ongoing responsibility for monitoring, managing and/or problem resolution for selected IT systems and functions on your behalf. MSPs can offer you services such as alerts, security, patch management, data backup and recovery for different client devices: desktops, mobile devices, servers, storage systems, networks and applications. They usually price their services on a fixed-cost, subscription basis. Depending on the services they provide, pricing is usually based on the number of devices, with different packages priced at different levels. Some provide customer support onsite when required. Basic services often start with a monitoring service, which notifies you of problems, which you then resolve on your own. At the upper end of the spectrum, service providers offer fully managed services that cover everything from alerts through problem resolution. Typically they perform an initial assessment of your current IT environment and management requirements to help you decide what services and service levels you need. For a large enterprise level business, it might make sense to outsource every single aspect of the corporate IT management. In other circumstances, a large (or medium/small sized) company may choose to compartmentalise a smaller, defined I.T. to outsource, like disaster recovery, or help desk. Or – outsourcing could be anything in between those two areas. CATEGORIES OF I.T. SUPPORTWHY SHOULD YOU CONSIDER I.T. SUPPORT?The reasons for you to use an MSP for your I.T. support are evolving constantly. You need to continually evaluate the potential of outsourcing to help meet your business tactical and strategic objectives. You will always have your own unique reasons for outsourcing, but broadly the three measurable advantages are:
Offloading routine infrastructure management to an experienced MSP lets you concentrate on running your business, with fewer interuptions due to IT issues. In times of increasing pressure to drive costs down and improve efficiency and productivity - an MSP can really reduce the cost of your IT, in many cases improving your service levels. The decision to outsource is strategic and follows a careful analysis that indicates service levels can be improved or costs reduced, or both, by relying on a partner’s expertise. CLICK HERE FOR THE FACTSOUR COMPLETE I.T. SUPPORT SOLUTIONS |
