7 reasons to outsource your IT to a managed service provider

Do what you do best and outsource the rest, said Peter Drucker, or the man who invented management as he’s famously called. 

The ethos of outsourcing is precisely that—specialization and exchange.

Many people inherently hate the idea of outsourcing saying, “I’m too early in the game to entrust the fate of my business to outsiders.”

Other people who hate outsourcing say, “I’m too big to entrust the legacy of my business to outsiders.”

Just take a look at the manufacturing industry. Earlier, brands owned the manufacturing process. Today, Nike outsources the manufacturing of its apparel and footwear - the part that makes 97% of its revenue. The philosophy of Nike must’ve been, why spend time reinventing the manufacturing wheel when I can pass the bucks to people who do it best and instead focus on marketing and design? Where the philosophy led Nike is a story well known.

We are talking directly to all businesses out there when we say outsourcing your IT to a managed service provider can be immensely beneficial. We have reasons.

1. To increase uptime

As a business owner or a manager, you have so many moving parts to focus on. IT can be tricky, as any fault there can essentially make your operations come to a halt. We are not just talking about downtime. We are talking about unnecessary IT inefficiencies right from poor network monitoring, human error, network outages, and application errors. Downtime can in fact be anything that interrupts work, including redundant processes. 

Managed service providers can keep your IT environment completely covered and optimized for potential problems while ensuring you face no work stoppage whatsoever. Managing your inordinate number of endpoints, servers, and networks is not on your shoulders anymore, but on your MSP’s.   

2. To cut business costs

IT can be very expensive. Through staffing, training, and overheads, along with spending on IT systems and infrastructure, you will accrue yourself a hefty bill. That's before considering the unpredictable expenses arising out of errors and inefficiencies. Outsourcing IT to an MSP means you enjoy the same quality of service an in-house team provides, without incurring the expense of having one. Because MSPs manage multiple clients and have the benefit of economies of scale, they will be able to offer their expertise and services at a lower cost compared to an in-house team.   

IT, although not a revenue center, can have a detrimental impact on your bottom line if not optimized for cost-effectiveness. Managed service providers take the unpredictability out of the IT process by optimizing your workflows and eliminating your staffing needs.    

Related reading: Break-up with break/fix-the new age MSP way!

3. To leverage best-in-class resources

Anyone who knows their way around the IT landscape knows efficiency saves you the most money, not cost-cutting. When you hire efficient teams rather than bigger teams, efficient solutions than cheap solutions, efficient vendors than expensive vendors, you save money. But finding high-quality resources isn’t easy. The easiest way to hurt your bottom line and hamper business growth is to hire a not-so-efficient workforce and use tools and solutions that just don’t cut it. More importantly, some companies may not be able to or have to invest in the latest tech and tools - it simply doesn’t make sense from a cost POV.

But MSPs have access to the latest tech and tools and they can deploy it across all their clients in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. Companies can also take advantage of a team that is trained to work with these technologies. MSPs also know what’s up and coming in the industry. Say you work in the healthcare vertical, you may not be able to hire or find IT folks who specialize in healthcare. It’s not a sustainable solution. But an MSP specialized in healthcare or has vertical-focused teams could offer you the expertise easily.  

4. To improve vendor relationships

When you manage IT in-house, you juggle between different vendors for different tasks. You might have a manufacturer for supplying devices, resellers for customizing solutions bought from third-party vendors, and IT consultants for technical support if you don’t have the bandwidth.

Imagine your technician runs into a problem in one of these areas. Unless he or she has experience working with vendors, they’ll find it difficult to manage the vendor interactions. 

An MSP, however, will be your only vendor for IT who will work with other vendors to make sure everything is in great shape. You can bid adieu to the hassle of working with multiple vendors with a single trusted adviser. 

5. To focus on bigger problems

Growing businesses have “99 problems” to deal with and IT doesn’t have to be one. Imagine instead of spending time on managing and fixing IT, you use it on areas that actually matter—business growth. A good sign to look for is if IT starts taking away time from business-impacting tasks. If yes, it’s time to outsource IT to a quality MSP. Employees can stop worrying about their systems working fine and move on to bigger and better problems. You can even have a high-level IT team or head of IT who focuses on the big picture while MSPs take care of the tactical stuff. 

Enable your teams to manage their time and work more efficiently, starting with removing unnecessary responsibilities off their plate such as IT concerns.  

Related reading: ITOps — what it means and what you should know

6. To ensure compliance and security

Having dedicated experts handle your IT services makes all the difference. How? It’s easy to miss out on important security updates and compliance requirements when you have a lot going on. Compliance failures can be disastrous and weaken your credibility with your customers, so are security failures.    

You need someone to stay on top of these things at all times. MSPs can consistently and proactively ensure every cog in your IT wheel is well-oiled and functioning perfectly while you sit back and relax.

7. To ramp up efficiency

Everything in this list ties to one shared outcome, and that’s efficiency. Outsourcing IT to a managed service provider removes everything that stands in the way of the functioning of your business - downtime, inefficient workflows, employee turnover, tech expenses—to name a few. 

MSPs already have what would take you years to achieve, setting efficient IT operations backed by expert staff and efficient solutions. 

Outsourcing is not a four letter word

Outsourcing IT isn’t about losing control, but about developing strategic partnerships which can help you grow your business faster. Sometimes your workforce is too small for the job. Sometimes your workforce is too big for efficiency. Either way, it helps to get an extra hand.

Outsource your IT to MSPs to stop worrying about IT operations and start working on what you can’t outsource, achieving business success. 

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