One ways to have your company’s IT network run smoothly is to assign the task to in-house personnel on your payroll – full-time administrators and technicians. Or you can outsource the task to an IT support firm in Manhattan. What’s right for you depends on your situation, but outsourcing support services can deliver several benefits that might not have be so apparent.
In the event of you deciding to outsource the support function, you also need to decide on the mode of such a service. One can either opt for a “break/fix” model of support wherein if and when something breaks down, the service provider fixes it.
You can also employ support on a Managed Services model. This model guarantees a proactive review of your systems and network around the clock, thus ensuring very low chances of breakdown and that fixes are applied soon enough. This can lead to a significantly more productive business making the case for a wise business investment.
Uptime
Professional Managed Services Providers (MSPs) assure 99.999% uptime of your network and services under their watch. This is referred to as a “five nines” uptime SLA. In general, this can translate into to a mere few minutes of downtime a year for most small- to medium-sized businesses.
Expertise & Availability
Most MSPs have automated programs that track your network efficiency and data availability on a round the clock basis. Those systems are further overseen by by expert technicians.
Admittedly, the situation can turn pretty grim if you have no mechanism in place to prevent network crashes. The relevant opportunity cost that your business may suffer from a disruption depends on several factors like your industry, the number of employees or even the time of the day.
Cybersecurity & Compliance
The 24/7 availability is the hallmark of Managed Services especially when it comes to data protection. Remember that hackers are working round the clock as well. Consequently network defenses have become a sort of cat-and-mouse game that require quick on the feet responses at all times.
In a similar manner, cybersecurity & compliance are also the most effective when hands-on and are tackled proactively. This means the constant monitoring of your servers, software and employee devices, not to mention robust firewalls, data backup schemes and anti-malware programs.
Cyberattacks can be quite expensive – not only in terms of disruptions in operations, but also the resulting penalties in line with regulations like HIPAA, SOX and GDPR.
All this makes it worth to invest in professional protections up front, rather than waiting to deal with it after the fallout of a data breach.
More than Protective Measures
Investment in proactive IT support can help you sidestep issues. It brings a huge cost-saving component — labor-saving to be exact — as well. Managed Services come with 24/7 availability — all at an affordable, fixed monthly fee. On the contrary, an internal IT team member is entitled to vacation time as well as other employee benefits, and is prone to sick days.
This aspect when added to the list of actual “support” benefits discussed before — optimized network efficiency, near-zero downtime, 24/7 data availability, security and compliance – no wonder that Managed Services are so popular among businesses in Manhattan. Get in touch with us today for a free, detailed consultation.
