How a Managed Service Provider can help your business

If you would like an IT company on your side, that understands you and what you need, and who works proactively to ensure your downtime is minimised, then you should consider a Managed Service Provider.

In this article, we will break down what an MSP is, how it can help your business, and use some real-life examples of businesses, like you, who have made the switch to an MSP.

Firstly, what is a Managed Service Provider?

In a nutshell, an MSP is your ‘outsourced IT Dept’ that provides both reactive and proactive IT support. An MSP knows you, your business, systems and team. An MSP provides preventative measures, detecting many issues long before they become a problem. This is done on a fixed fee monthly basis, so you can better budget for your IT.

The mission of an MSP is to protect your business from costly downtime and ensure that business continues seamlessly.

What is the break-fix model of IT support?

In contrast, the ‘break-fix’ model of IT support is when you call an IT company when something breaks, and they come and fix it, on an ad-hoc pay-by-hour model. There may not be any ongoing support or preventative security measures taken. This is a bit like the ambulance at the bottom of the hill.  

Top advantages of an MSP for your business:

We become an IT partner to your business: As an MSP we are interested in understanding your entire business. We see ourselves as a business partner who wants to help your business to succeed and grow. This is quite different from the ‘break-fix’ model. We anticipate a long-term working relationship with your business.  

Proactive IT Support: As an MSP, our mission is to keep your business technology safe and available, and to anticipate your needs and requirements. This means minimum costly downtime and maximum business continuity.

Knowledge of your needs: As we have a long-term relationship with your business, we become closely acquainted with your IT systems, and your people. Because of this, we understand how the parts make up the whole, rather than just offering a quick short-term solution, which may be costly in the future.

Cost savings: By outsourcing your IT management to us, you get a well-informed IT department on your team, without the cost and responsibility of training, recruiting, and retaining staff. The MSP model also helps significantly reduce the administrative load of managing an IT provider. Finally, with GTB as your MSP, if something goes wrong, we will fix it at no extra charge, so there are no budget blowouts from your IT support and maintenance.

Peace of Mind: Because your MSP has the responsibility to keep your systems working and people supported from within the monthly fee, you are effectively passing the responsibility and risk for the day-to-day functioning of your IT system to your MSP partner. Less for you to worry about, so you can spend more time on your customers and your business!

 Case-Study

“An IT Alliance member had a company who was reaching out to them on a ‘break-fix’ basis. During Covid the IT Alliance member reached out to them to discuss becoming their MSP. They sat down and discussed what this actually meant, the services that the MSP offers, and the priority that is given to MSP clients. The client has been using them as an MSP for over two years now, and happily sings their praises, saying that having an MSP has revolutionized their business. No more waiting for IT support, no more downtime and so much more alignment”

So, what does an MSP actually do?

Remote Monitoring: An MSP proactively monitors, patches, and updates your software on an ongoing basis with 24/7 monitoring. This is all done in the background on an ongoing basis and requires no input from you.

Security: As an MSP we review your systems to identify and address vulnerabilities. We keep up with system updates, software patching, antivirus and more. It would be difficult for any business to keep up to date with all the daily security alerts; whereas that is a part of our daily work. Important - your MSP can do much to help with your security, but we can never do everything - your security is still a whole-of-business issue for you and your team.

Optimising hardware: An MSP provides information on optimal hardware that synchronises across your business. This includes laptops, desktops, and mobile devices, plus your network and servers.  We can work with you to understand your growth requirements and work on the best timeline for your budget.

Strategic advice: As IT is what we do and we do lots of it, we hear about a myriad of tools that may be of benefit to business goals. We share this advice with you, rather than you having to research or find out how you can optimise technology for your needs.

Regular reviews: As an MSP client, you are a priority which means that we schedule regular proactive reviews.

Business Continuity and disaster-recovery strategy: Nowadays it is crucial that you have a solid data backup and business continuity plan. We can help you with this process and ensure that everything can be efficiently restored should the need arise.

So what do I do now?

So now you have an overview of what an MSP is, and how they can help your business. The next step is talking to the team at GTB about your specific needs. Please feel free to reach out here for further advice. 

GTB has been an IT managed service provider for over a decade, and many of our testimonials are from managed service clients.