Per Matt Dickerson, Managing Director and Senior Network Consultant of AXXIS Technology, and cited as one of the Top 15 Worldwide SMB consultants, "The typical small business or firm spends 30% of the I.T. budget on hardware purchases and 70% on I.T. maintenance." What are those numbers for your business? What do you use to measure those expenses?
The purpose of this article is to give you a potential option the next time you, or the boss asks, "What can we do to improve the business, while reducing the cost of doing business?" Grab your favorite beverage and let's take a quick look at I.T. Managed Services.
What is Managed IT Services?
A mix of products, services and other I.T. partner offerings used to deliver a full range of on-site and remote I.T. services to primarily the small to medium sized business. The service provider serves as the complete virtual I.T. department for the business.
This can include, but not limited to, initial I.T. planning and implementation, to ongoing technical support and administration, to budgeting to ensure that the information technology backbone stays in step with the businesses current and future needs.
What are the services?
All providers have differing services and solutions that they provide and, this is important, how they provide them. Below are examples of the basic services. If you are researching a I.T. Managed Services partner and they do not provide these, continue your search!
7/24/365 Network Monitoring, Maintenance, & Support
This is at the core of what each and every I.T. services company provides the business. Your information and the needs and expectations of your customers are too important to call somebody and wait 24 to 72 hours or more for an I.T. issue to be resolved. How do you effectively plan and budget for these out of the blue situations anyway? Your IT services provider should be constantly monitoring your systems, providing maintenance, such as spyware and virus protection, disk drive analysis, application usage, and security patch management. A big one for most businesses: have off-site and on-site support available around the clock. No guessing game or "around this much" - there should be a fixed fee for the services.
I.T. Systems Planning and Analysis
Many business owners make I.T.-related decisions as a reaction to their immediate needs rather than part of a long-term growth plan. Your provider should assess your current and future I.T. needs and make recommendations to help your business grow. The idea is for every component of your business to be geared in some way towards growing your business. This should include I.T., right?
Disaster Protection/Offsite Data Backup
There are plenty of recent examples to confirm for us that you have to plan for the unexpected. Your customers depend on you to serve them without interruption. Your I.T. services provider should provide secure offsite data backup solutions that provide a backup of your data automatically. You have a business to run. Your I.T. services provider should partner with you to develop and implement a disaster recovery plan that you or your staff won't have the hassle of managing.
I.T. Vendor Management
Should you or your staff spend endless hours on the phone with I.T. vendors, or rather, dedicate time and effort to growing the business? Your IT services provider should be there to help you manage your relationships with your ISP, hardware vendor, web developer, ASP, etc...
Network Services
I have yet to meet or work with a business, large or small, that doesn't go through some kind of periodic "environment changes". This can range from staff changing desks, switching offices, or moving the entire business to a new location. Make sure your I.T. services provider takes care of the I.T. aspects of these changes. If you are moving or setting up a new network, task your I.T. services provider with designing, installing and certifying your data network. Make sure they are capable of taking care of the telecom, cabling, and I.T. equipment installation.
Regulations and Compliance
At the beginning of this century, we in the healthcare industry went through a "regulations crisis". The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) came down and the mad scramble and focus was on how to secure the system-housed information and ensure we were all in compliance. As HIPAA is to healthcare, other businesses have rules and regulations on how to use and secure information. Your I.T. services provider must have the knowledge, experience, and resources to aid you in remaining compliant with these directives.
Website design and hosting
Whatever your position on the degree of benefit to the internet, the reality is that many businesses and consumers use the internet as the first step in getting info on your business. Your I.T. services provider should have the tools available to work with you on developing and managing a website that can serve as "the front porch to your business". While having a great website will not necessarily be used to rule you in as the business to call, having a substandard or non-existent website can be used to cross you off the list.
Discount Product Purchasing
I.T. equipment is often an expensive investment. Regardless of the amount you purchase, you should never pay more than absolutely necessary. Your I.T. services provider should have agreements in place to ensure you get the best, most competitively priced complete systems, peripherals, parts, or upgrades.
What are the benefits?
You now know what the typical managed services company provides or should be offering, but what do you really get out of this partnership? After all, change is difficult and everyone is comfortable with the way we've always done things, regardless of the costs, the impact on the business, or how we might be getting short changed on services.
Focus on Business
You and your people are experts and great at what you do. I've spoken with business leaders who give examples of staff members trying to fit I.T. guru into their responsibilities. I've heard, "One of our staff lawyers, Joe, does our I.T.", "Pat, in Accounting, does the I.T. stuff that she knows.", "My HR Director, Tom, studied programming in college and does our I.T." I never doubt that these people give their best efforts, but question if that's the best use of these valuable resources and I am skeptical if everything is getting done.
Single Source for I.T.
You have one point of contact for all of your Information Technology needs. Rather than a laundry list of contacts and phone numbers, you have one source for your I.T. Note: Check on this! Most premier IT services providers will have a single point of contact who will know you, your business, your goals, and your I.T. infrastructure. If you don't know who has your account, you are always speaking with a different person on the phone, a different technician comes out to your business to do service, well, it is time for you to ask probing questions or search for a new provider.
Budgeting
The guesswork is gone. As you formulate your budgets, you will know exactly what your I.T. expenditures will be for any period of time. You work with your I.T. services provider to formulate and define your plan, needs, and expectations. The dollar figure is assigned and you work on producing results in your industry.
Breadth of Knowledge: We all know the growth rate in the I.T. industry has been phenomenal and new technologies and gadgets are constantly being added to the inventory. While most businesses have team members who specialize in a particular facet of the company, I.T. Managed Services companies also have staffs that have expertise throughout the I.T. spectrum.
It is near impossible, and not very cost effective, for SMBs to employ an in house I.T. staff with the same cumulative breadth of I.T. knowledge. This leaves the questions for the business with the in house I.T.: What are we incapable of doing? What is getting missed? For businesses without I.T., it makes sense to avail themselves in having an entire I.T. department at their disposal without the costs or impracticality of an in house I.T. department.
Anybody there?
Getting back to the level of support topic, having an I.T. services provider ensures that you maintain a predictable, consistent level of support, regardless of vacations, sick time, resignations, terminations, etc., associated with in house I.T. Apart from this, most I.T. services providers have a form of supplemental support where they will work with you during times when in house I.T. is absent or there is an increased workload.
If 30 minutes would help my bottom line...: Every successful business leader, whom I've worked or spoken with, is looking for ways to improve and keep their business ahead of the competition. Some businesses have an in house I.T. department or retain their current support and services provider, because, well, that's the way things have always been done. Some businesses prefer the "Las Vegas approach" of no I.T. support at all. They cross their fingers, roll the dice daily, and hand over the money as they go along.
I encourage you to do some due diligence, even if it takes 30 minutes. Research, discuss internally, and engage an I.T. Managed Services professional to see if I.T. Managed Services would possibly benefit you, your staff, and your valued customers.
Bill Culhane writes for Mission IT Services. Mission IT provides Austin IT Support and IT services for small businesses across Central Texas.
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