Have you considered outsourcing your company’s IT support needs to an MSP (managed services provider) but found yourself wondering, “How does an MSP work?”
A trusted MSP could make your IT operations more efficient, reliable and scalable — and it just might become your business’s new best friend. Today we’ll go over what MSPs do, the benefits of partnering with an MSP and how their help could make or break your business.
What Do MSPs Do?
MSP stands for managed services provider. An MSP works with your business to support your IT needs, from ensuring your systems run smoothly and stay secure to dealing with day-to-day technical issues, allowing you to focus on your core business.
MSPs can oversee many other related IT services, such as email, cybersecurity, networking, data storage, cloud integration, software patching and much more. By partnering with an MSP, you can delegate the essential tasks of IT management to a dedicated team and free up your time (and your budget) for other high-priority areas of your business.
Let’s take a closer look at how MSPs work:
Help Desk Support
The first thing an MSP can help with is taking over your IT support and managing a help desk for your employees. Rather than waiting for help from an overburdened in-house IT team, you’ll see faster IT ticket resolution and less downtime as your employees wait for their tech issues to be fixed.
24/7 Monitoring
Another important service that MSPs offer is 24/7 monitoring to ensure your network is protected. Hackers are typically more active overnight when IT systems are less monitored and more vulnerable. By monitoring developing cybersecurity threats, updating antivirus software and upgrading your network security configurations, an MSP can more effectively and efficiently protect your organization from malicious actors.
Advanced Risk and Compliance Management
An MSP will also ensure that your company’s IT operations meet all industry-specific security requirements and other compliance mandates. By outsourcing your IT services, you can have peace of mind knowing that your business stores customer data securely and minimizes any potential risk.
Proactive System and Software Maintenance
Keeping up with system updates and software patches is one of the most widely recommended cybersecurity best practices. A small in-house team tasked with IT maintenance across your business might struggle to stay on top of every single update.
In comparison, a skilled MSP can catch issues and resolve them before they become costly. By taking a proactive stance with your IT management, you can rest assured that your MSP will prevent issues from causing downtime or avoidable business losses.
Server Management and Configuration
MSPs can also set up and manage your servers so you don’t have to. Working with an MSP can free up time otherwise spent on server maintenance and network security so you can dedicate your resources to more important areas of your business.
Data Backup and Recovery
You’ve heard it time and time again: Back up your data, then back it up again just to be sure. And while we all hope that we won’t need those backups, system crashes do happen.
An MSP can manage your data backup schedule and store your files on a separate server to keep them safe from hackers, equipment malfunctions and natural disasters. An MSP can also recover lost data and get your systems back up and running as quickly as possible, protecting your reputation and reducing downtime.
Data Storage Management
Cloud-based storage offers many benefits to small businesses, such as little to no capital investment in server equipment and secure access to company files from anywhere. Moving your data to the cloud also improves flexibility and scalability for growing small businesses.
An MSP can help your business transfer your data to the cloud for easy access and secure storage. By collaborating with an MSP to use cloud services, you can consolidate servers and control storage costs as your company grows.
Cloud Security
Cloud security, or cloud computing security, involves a set of policies, procedures and technologies that work together to protect cloud-based systems, data and infrastructure. These security measures are designed to also support regulatory IT compliance and protect consumers’ privacy.
Because these rules can be managed in one place, many businesses prefer to outsource this to an MSP that will manage user authentication and configure cloud security according to the unique needs of a business.
What Benefits Can MSPs Offer Your Business?
Beyond the basics of managed IT services, MSPs can also enhance your business operations in many other ways. So what do MSPs do to help businesses strategically use IT to meet their business goals?
1. Control Costs
Most MSPs operate on a subscription-based model that can be tailored to a business’s unique needs, from basic IT support to high-level maintenance. An MSP can help you maximize your budget by giving you access to a team of IT experts for less than the cost of an in-house team.
2. Decrease Downtime
Many MSPs offer overnight monitoring to ensure your website and IT infrastructure are up and running 24/7. Collaborating with an MSP can minimize any downtime caused by malware, viruses and hackers, which can lead to unexpected costs from lost productivity.
3. Provide Enhanced Security
Outsourcing your IT needs to an MSP is an ideal solution for small businesses that cannot afford a specialized in-house IT team to protect their business from threats and stay on top of system maintenance. With the focused attention of an MSP behind your company, you can trust that your MSP will keep up with necessary hardware and software updates and implement the latest cybersecurity best practices.
4. Reduce Risk
An MSP can also monitor for threats based on your location, industry, client base and more. Taking a proactive approach to your business’s cybersecurity can help you avoid costly data breaches and quickly resolve any issues should they come up.
5. Offer Compliance Expertise
In recent years there has been an increase in IT compliance regulation across many industries, making it a higher priority for most businesses. An MSP can ensure your systems comply with any relevant regulations so you can minimize risks and securely store sensitive data, like payment information and health records.
6. Support Remote Workers
Because an MSP remotely monitors and oversees your IT infrastructure, they are poised to offer dedicated support to your entire team, including remote workers. An MSP can also remotely install system and software updates, update antivirus software and resolve IT issues so your team can stay focused on their projects.
7. Guide Strategic Growth
Collaborating with an MSP makes it easier for you to scale your IT infrastructure as your business grows. Most MSPs offer a broad range of subscription models, and it’s easy for you to adjust your service plan as your company’s needs change.
8. Give You Peace of Mind
An MSP gives your company what we all want most: peace of mind. With a team of IT experts overseeing everything from 24/7 IT support and software updates to critical data backups and regulatory compliance, you and your team can rest easy knowing that your network is secure.
Need a New BFF? Helixstorm Is Here For You
Are you looking to make your IT services more efficient so you have more resources to put toward your core business? Then it’s time to leave IT services to the experts.
Working with a managed IT services provider like Helixstorm helps you align technology with your business goals to future-proof your company. Gain access to greater security measures and decreased downtime by collaborating with our team of technical experts with over 50 years of collective industry experience — at a fraction of the cost. Get in touch today to learn about how our managed IT services can improve your IT operations.
