The average organization with 500 or fewer employees staffs one IT person per 18 employees while the average company with 500< staffs just 1 IT person per 40 employees. In these organizations, IT staff typically have to maintain a great deal of local services ranging from priorities like network architecture and governance to functioning as technical support.
In most cases, this means IT teams are dramatically overloaded with an array of tasks including app support, continuance, security, privacy, and architecture, but also individual user problems and issues, and maintaining device and application quality across the organization. This results in overloaded teams that don’t have the time or resources to do anything truly well.
Managed services such as print management services, managed network architecture, or other managed IT services are one solution. Here, you outsource services that are not core to the IT team, allowing them to focus on true value-added tasks.
While outsourcing doesn’t make sense for every organization, it can help you to free up IT for core services, which will save your organization money while reducing total costs.
Importantly, implementing IT managed services does not always mean replacing IT teams (although it can, especially for small business) because most organizations should retain their own IT. Instead, it means supplementing existing IT with specific service support and infrastructure or hardware, plus external specialists or teams to handle work.
Specialized Teams
Loading specific services onto a general IT department typically means those teams aren’t specialized in that service. Whether the service in question is print management, information security management, software, or specific server architecture, your IT team will never have the resources to create dedicated and specialized knowledge in that field.
Unless a specific need grows to the point where it requires a significant portion of IT attention, your IT team will never be able to specialize in that field to the point of being able to do it easily and at maximum efficiency.
IT Managed Services don’t have these limitations.
Instead, teams will work full-time on specific services. They will have the resources to dedicate fully to those services, will maintain training to update to new technologies and solutions, and will continue to invest in technology and solutions. One team will typically provide specific IT solutions across numerous companies through one managed services provider (MSP), giving them the freedom to fully dedicate themselves to what they do.
This means those teams will be able to handle services more quickly, more affordably, and to a higher level of quality than base teams. Rather than spending a great deal giving your IT teams base functionality, you’re paying for a small portion of the time of an expert team.
Expert-level teams and IT managed solutions also means that new projects can be started right away.
Teams won’t have to train, update knowledge bases, research, or invest in new tools to start new projects, launch new services, or switch to new technologies. Instead, an IT team will step in, install solutions, train internal people as-needed, and then continue to manage those services to ensure performance after the initiative launches.
Needs-Based Solutions
IT Managed Services scales to your organizational needs. Most will begin service contracts with in-depth needs-assessment, fleet-assessment, and process assessment to determine what you have, where it could be optimized, and why.
You then receive support and assistance to meet your needs and optimize what you have. This means that you might receive a complete IT solution if you don’t currently have IT in place.
It also means you might receive very light supplementation to existing teams, with additional services, expert support, or technical services rendered rather than a full solution.
In short, you have the option to choose IT services at a level you need, which makes it easy to free IT up for other tasks.
Proactive Services
IT Managed Services are proactive, meaning that networks, infrastructure, and services are monitored and maintained with the intent to prevent rather than solve issues.
Most in-house IT teams will fix IT issues as they crop up, attempt to identify root problem, and solve that if possible.
IT Managed Services attempt to recognize potential issues before they crop up, reducing total number of issues and total problems. This cuts demand on in-house IT staff to solve problems, reduces demand on support lines, and reduces total downtime for anyone affected by IT issues.
Most IT Managed Services also include support and fixes, which can be valuable especially in the case of hardware, where existing IT teams might have to call third-party repair services anyway.
Support Lines
IT teams typically function to answer technical support calls, which can include anything from basic computer setup and infrastructure to printer troubleshooting.
IT Managed Services will step in to take over support calls for any service they are handling, offering dedicated customer support.
This reduces total call volume to IT, effectively lowering not only time spent on phones for IT staff, but also load on internal phone systems.
Hardware Management
Hardware installation, management, and optimization typically falls on IT, who often aren’t hardware specialists.
Removing this workload frees IT specialists up to focus on governance and architecture, without having to worry about managing and updating hardware like servers, print servers, printers, routers, or other devices.
IT Managed Services steps in to provide hardware optimized for specific organizational needs. It also includes long-term maintenance and optimization, regular servicing and repair, and any supplies as needed for optimal performance.
IT managed services typically function to supplement existing IT departments, bringing expertise, specialization, and hardware management.
These teams manage these IT processes as their core goals, unlike your own organization, meaning they can offer higher quality with the same or less investment.
Most importantly, bringing those teams in to supplement existing IT will free your IT services up, reducing total costs, removing the need to hire on more people, and improving their ability to perform core tasks.
