What Is A Managed Service Provider?

Managed Service Provider is a strange term. What does it mean and how will it help your business? Well let’s start at the beginning…

OK, so imagine you’re starting a new Pets Online company. To get your business moving you decide to buy yourself and your employees brand-new laptops to increase the efficiency around the office.  

Suddenly your laptop starts acting up and the keyboard periodically stops working. What do you do? Do you look for someone for support or do you try to fix it yourself? 

How about we ask a slightly different question. When you look at the big tech companies around the world who went from the small room (or garage) to the super large offices and a recognised brand, what do you think they did? That’s right, they didn’t waste time or (more importantly) focus, on fixing small things like a laptop or an email server going down. 

Let’s talk about the three things that define what exactly an MSP is. What are the top challenges IT leaders face today and what are the benefits of using an MSP to support your IT. 

So what is an MSP? Let’s go back to the issue that you were having with your laptop’s keyboard. How do you go about fixing it, is there someone that you can call, can you email someone for support or can chat live with an agent online? 

If these services sound familiar to you or you have used them in the past, you’ve most likely used services provided by an IT department or an MSP. Essentially an MSP runs your IT department for you and they provide you with EXPERT QUALIFIED people who process the technology and keep it all running smoothly for you. A MSP provides you with cost-effective solutions that help you stay within your budget. 

But my laptop isn’t going to break down every day. Why would I need a MSP all the time.

Good point! So let’s talk about the top challenges the IT departments face today.  

THE FIRST BIG CHALLENGE – Pace of IT Change

The first challenge is changing technology. Technology is changing at such a rapid rate and with the advancement of this technology it’s actually changing the way companies are having to operate.  What was the best option last year often is not the best option this year. What your IT guy learned at university was out of date before he even got his degree.  

The change in IT today is so fast that most MSP’s develop methods to monitor the changes and track what are currently the best solutions.  

Where this becomes important is when you are upgrading technologies or introducing new systems. If you only run a small (or none) IT department, how will they ever get the information they will need to make these types of decisions.  

At Pronet we are constantly in this upgrading game. With our large group of clients, there are always several of them in the upgrading cycle and so we are always at the forefront of what is needed and what works best. This also keeps us aware of pricing and whether a deal is a good or a bad one.

THE SECOND BIG CHALLENGE – Work From Home

We are seeing more and more companies adopt a remote and mobile workforce allowing their employees to work from home. With the Coronavirus this has increased off the chart. What is great about work from home is that there’s a major upside to it. In fact 66% of managers have claimed that their employees are actually more productive while working from home. 

Now imagine when one of these work from home employees has an issue with their laptop, or the internet won’t connect or their email won’t load or their password stopped working. How do they fix it if your IT is not prepared to support them in their homes. That will negatively impact the productivity of your employees hence impacting your company’s performance. 

To work from home effectively there needs to be a set of systems put in place. We monitor all those systems to make sure that you get a smooth integration with the people working from your office.

Work from home definitely has a heap of benefits not the least being the saving of office space which is literal money saved every month.

THE THIRD BIG CHALLENGE – Accessing Data

If you don’t know it yet, we are in the age of data. Google and Facebook have led the charge to show us what happens if you first collect data, then use technology to farm it.  

Your company will have access to enormous amounts of data and what most people are doing is ignoring it. They just basically throw it all away.  

What an MSP can do is help you understand what data you have coming in and then most importantly how to collect it, store it and farm it. All legally of course.

Taking advantage of this level IT is what really separates the allsorans from the winners

SUMMARY

It is unusual for someone to be great at multiple things.  In fact, when superstars try to cross into others fields they soon learn that being great at one thing is hard enough.

Let us assume that if you are starting your new Online Pet Store then, hopefully you are the best there is on Online Pet things. Hopefully, you have a new angle of looking at things or a new way of buying or delivery. What would be unusual is if you were also an expert in all things tech. IT is changing at a super speed at present and it looks to be getting faster and faster. Things are moving towards work from home, which also brings with it a set of problems that become magnified quickly if not treated early.

Capturing data and then optimising that data for use is the latest part of IT. The companies that are doing it are finding themselves at the forefront of the winning players. Finally, as you achieve what you have always wanted for your company, a solid growth, having a MSP looking after all your tech lets you focus on what you’re best at.

We have the ability to hire experts specifically for each project we are working on. If your company needs a rare expert to run a system then we are in the position to hire that person and manage them for you.  This again lets you focus on the money side of the business and let us make sure everything turns on and works each time you need it.

Using a MSP saves you money and hassles. We stop things from going wrong BEFORE they go wrong.  This is probably our biggest compliment we receive each month from different clients. When we get early warning that a system is at capacity or going to break we can head it off before it breaks. If we miss the breakage then we are onsite within an hour or so to get everything back to order.

Looking forward to the future. I hope you get all the systems you want. If you have any questions, give the team Pronet a call at 039062188

 

Cheers,

Nick CheungDirectorPronet Technology