For many small or medium sized businesses (SMB), IT network support is becoming prohibitively expensive, yet they have a significant capital investment in their current equipment and software that makes a move to the cloud inappropriate until those assets are further amortized. That’s a perfect example of a situation in which outsourcing a company’s IT support would be the most cost-effective approach. Managed support services are like having an on-call IT department which is just a phone call away, and which doesn’t carry with it the employee overhead of an on-site IT department.
Beyond the employee expenses, managed support frees a company’s executives from the burden of micro-managing their hardware, software, and networking problems, and lets them concentrate on making the business decisions that drive sales. Meanwhile, their managed support team has the combined skills of far more IT professionals than would be available with in-house staffing, and the network can be managed proactively instead of reactively. This results in less network downtime and improved productivity. Frequently, the change is immediately obvious, as the managers become less distracted by IT problems, the cash flow improves, and the business begins to run more smoothly and profitably.
Typically, during the transition period while a company is enjoying the benefits of these managed services, it will also have its applications gradually virtualized so that they may be quickly and efficiently migrated to the cloud when the in-house equipment approaches its end-of-life. This strategy ensures the smoothest possible transition with the least disturbance to the company’s work-flow during that critical migration.
While far from exhaustive, this brief overview illustrates a few of the benefits your company can realize from managed network services. So if you would like to streamline the IT operations of your small or medium sized business, contact us today and let us show you what a managed service provider can do for you.
