By: Karl Bickmore, CEO, Snap Tech IT
As a business owner, we know you have a lot on your plate when it comes to managing, securing and growing your business. Wearing many hats is part of the game as you strive to remain competitive while solving your business challenges and realizing the return you need on your investments.
If managing and securing your IT environment continues to be a struggle, consider a smart investment around one of the most critical parts of your business. Managed IT Services could be the ticket to protecting and managing your IT environment so that you can focus on strategic direction. Here are 5 reasons you should consider Managed IT Services:
1. Identify Vulnerabilities
Often, businesses don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to managing a secure IT environment. A firewall here and antivirus there are no longer considered adequate protection from the sophisticated cyber threats that exist. With Managed IT, you want to look for ongoing, comprehensive assessments to gather data on how your environment is performing, what threats are lurking beneath the surface and pinpoint areas that need urgent attention. Not just identifying generic threats, but those that can affect your business the most, 24x7x365. This gives you the ability to select which vulnerabilities you want to address by priority.
2. Minimize Costs
Many businesses are under the impression that Managed IT Services must be astronomically expensive. Truth is, the IT landscape has evolved so much in the last decade that many IT professionals lack the expertise to adequately manage and secure IT environments. So when you think about it, the cost of in-house Managed IT Services is much less than hiring a team of IT experts that are fetching six-figure salaries each. Additionally, the massive risk reduction saves your business future emergency costs, such as paying a ransom, catastrophic downtime, loss of productivity from a cybersecurity breach, equipment failure, just to name a few. Being able to calculate return on your IT investment in future savings justifies Managed IT.
3. Bolster Process & Efficiency
Do you have routine procedures in place when it comes to managing and securing your entire IT environment? Managed IT Services allows you to tap into a level of expertise that is incredibly difficult to find when you piecemeal IT management. Top-tier Managed Services also helps you create business efficiencies through custom process development, documentation and implementation that you own. To further capitalize on efficiency, ensure you have access to a ticketing system to manage support.
4. Expand Your Team’s Capabilities
When you think of Managed IT Services as an extension of your team, you realize the depth and breadth of the capabilities you can access when you need them, and even when you don’t. Your dedicated team will bring an issue to you, even when you’re not watching, they are. Having your internal team focusing on what they do best is essential in growing your business. Solid Managed IT Services will deliver critical insights into your business operations, equipping your team with the intel needed to make operational decisions. Your ability to maximize internal resources when your IT environment is expertly managed is just one example of streamlining operations based on intel you can receive from Managed IT. It’s all about keeping your eye on the ball.
5. Proactively Counter Cyber Threats
Cyberattacks on SMBs are increasing exponentially, and businesses can’t afford to be a victim of an attack they could’ve prevented. Here’s where it gets interesting. How to get ahead of cyber threats. Your Managed Services team should not only proactively monitor and protect your network at all times, but they should also be backed by giants in the cybersecurity industry. What this means for you is that your IT environment is supported by the most advanced cybersecurity solutions in the market, 365-degree threat protection.