What’s the Difference between Co-Managed and Managed IT?

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When it comes to managed IT services, there are two main options: co-managed and managed. So what’s the difference? In this blog post, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both options, so you can make an informed decision about which type of service is best for your business.

What is Co-Managed IT?

Co-managed IT is a type of service where the client and IT service provider share responsibility for the management of the IT infrastructure. This can include tasks such as monitoring, patching, and incident response. 

These services are often used by businesses that have in-house IT staff, but lack the expertise or resources to effectively manage their IT infrastructure.

Advantages of Co-Managed IT

There are several advantages to this type of service:

  • Co-managed IT services can be customized to fit the needs of the client.
  • Co-managed IT services can be less expensive than managed IT services, since the client is sharing the cost of the service with the provider.
  • Co-managed IT services can provide a higher level of support than in-house IT staff, since the provider has more expertise and resources.

Disadvantages of Co-Managed IT

There are some disadvantages to co-managed services:

  • The client may have to share confidential information with the provider.
  • The provider may not be available 24 hours a day, which can be a problem if there is an issue with the IT infrastructure outside of normal business hours.

What is Managed IT?

Managed IT is a type of service where the IT service provider takes full responsibility for the management of the client’s IT infrastructure. Managed IT services are utilized by businesses that do not have any kind of professional IT systems in place.

Advantages of Managed IT

There are several advantages to managed IT services:

  • Managed IT services can provide a higher level of support than in-house IT staff, since the provider has more expertise and resources.
  • Managed IT services can be available 24 hours a day, which can be helpful if there is an issue with the IT infrastructure outside of normal business hours.
  • Managed IT services can take care of all the details of managing the IT infrastructure, so the client can focus on their business.

Disadvantages of Managed IT

There are some disadvantages to managed IT services:

  • Managed IT services can be more expensive than co-managed services, since the client is not sharing the cost of the service with the provider.
  • The provider may have to share confidential information with other clients.
  • The client may not have as much control over their IT infrastructure as they would with co-managed services.

Looking for Co-managed or Managed IT Services?

Both co-managed and managed IT services have their advantages and disadvantages. The best option for your business will depend on your needs and budget. If you need a high level of support but want to save money, co-managed IT services may be the best option.

Do you have any questions about co-managed or managed IT services? Reach out to ISG Technology today to learn more about the right options for your business.

The Benefits of Co-Managed IT Service for Healthcare Providers

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Fast network speeds and a quality cybersecurity plan are probably not the first things that come to mind when you think about technology for healthcare. But these tools can be just as important as medical supplies when it comes to providing quality patient care.

That’s where co-managed IT services come in. By outsourcing your organization’s IT needs to a team of experts, you can focus on your core mission while a managed service provider takes care of the rest.

Why Does Your Organization Need Customized Healthcare IT Services?

There’s a lot that goes into keeping a healthcare facility up and running, from maintaining compliance with regulations to ensuring secure data storage. Here are some of the IT services that are essential for healthcare providers:

Cybersecurity: In the age of digital medical records, protecting patient data is more important than ever. A managed service provider can help you implement the latest cybersecurity tools and best practices to keep your data safe.

Network Management: Healthcare providers need fast, reliable network connections to access patient records, schedule appointments, and more. Managed IT services will redesign your network for maximum speed and efficiency.

Compliance: Healthcare organizations must comply with a variety of regulations, from HIPAA to the HITECH Act. Working with a managed service provider will help you stay up-to-date on the latest compliance requirements and ensure that your systems are compliant.

Data Storage: Healthcare providers generate a lot of data, from medical records to X-rays. A managed service provider can help you store this data securely and ensure that it is accessible when you need it.

Managed IT services can provide your healthcare organization with a wide range of benefits, from improved network speeds to secure data storage. By outsourcing your IT needs to a team of experts, you can focus on providing quality patient care instead of putting out IT fires. 

What Specialized IT Services Are Available for Healthcare?

As the world becomes increasingly digital, healthcare providers are finding that they need to upgrade their IT systems in order to keep up. While many organizations are turning to managed IT services to get the help they need, not all providers offer specialized services tailored specifically for healthcare providers.

A proactive managed IT provider for healthcare will offer:

  • Electronic health records (EHR)
  • Telemedicine
  • Revenue cycle management (RCM) software
  • Practice management software
  • EHR/EMR handling and processes
  • Support for medical interface problems

These days, it’s not enough to simply have an IT department. In order to keep up with the rapidly changing world of healthcare technology, you need a team of dedicated IT professionals who are up-to-date on the latest trends and developments.

What Are the Benefits of Specialized IT Services for Healthcare?

When a managed service provider creates a curated strategy just for you, you’re sure to see a return on your investment. Here are just a few of the benefits of having specialized IT services for healthcare:

  • Improved patient care: When you outsource your IT, you can focus on your core mission of providing quality patient care.
  • Increased efficiency: A managed service provider can help you streamline your processes and make better use of your time.
  • Compliance: Stay up to date on the latest compliance requirements with an IT technician who specializes in healthcare compliance.
  • Improved security: By outsourcing your IT, you can benefit from the latest cybersecurity tools and best practices.
  • Lower costs: With fixed-cost pricing, you can save money on infrastructure costs and avoid the need to hire additional staff.

A managed service provider can help you make the most of your time and resources so that you can focus on providing quality patient care. When you partner with an MSP, you can be confident that your IT needs are in good hands.

Avoid Costly IT Challenges with ISG Technology

When it comes to technology, healthcare is changing fast. In order to keep up with the latest trends and developments, you need a team of dedicated IT professionals who are up-to-date on the latest trends and developments.

At ISG Technology, we understand the unique challenges that healthcare organizations face. We’ve worked with hundreds of healthcare providers, from large hospitals to small specialty clinics and everything in between. We help take the IT burden off healthcare providers’ shoulders.

With our help, you can focus on providing quality patient care while we take care of your IT needs. Contact us today to learn more about our healthcare IT services.

Webinar: Cyber Insurance. And The War On Ransomware.

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Cyber insurance is a must-have weapon for all organizations trying to mitigate modern security threats. But the exponential increase in ransomware has created an industry chain reaction – Insurance providers are leaving the market, premiums are on the rise, more security controls are being required, and organizations are left scrambling.

Prepare For The War On Ransomware

In this executive panel discussion, you’ll get actionable advice directly from an industry-leading cyber insurance provider as well as the technology/solution providers actively fighting the war on ransomware. View the full webinar here

What You’ll Learn:

  • The rise of ransomware and industry chain reaction
  • The role of cyber insurance in incident response plans
  • Evaluating your current policy (Good? Bad? Or Ugly?)
  • The increasing controls insurance providers are requiring
  • How business and IT leaders must partner together

Business IT Guide: Keeping Users Productive & Happy

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IT solutions and software are essential for businesses to maximize productivity and streamline operations. However, it is very common that new technologies hinder productivity when not correctly implemented, and lagging, inefficient systems can slow operations.

Here’s how you can keep users happy and productive by providing essential support, tools, and processes.

increasing IT productivity

The Critical Importance of Enabling Workers to Be Productive 

With the business world’s tech solutions constantly expanding, businesses are becoming leaner and more efficient than ever. As a result, IT solutions enable companies to operate at record-breaking speeds while increasing the quality of the output.

However, while IT solutions can be incredibly beneficial for businesses, they can have a steep learning curve, and downtime caused by tech slowdowns can result in major profit losses.

If employees spend countless hours per day trying to understand how to use a new system properly or waiting for lagging systems, this can lead to decreased productivity and employee happiness.

Leading solutions like Microsoft 365 enable teams to remain connected and up to speed. Enabling your team with the right solutions, including software and hardware, is critical to your organization’s success. 

When and Why to Offload User Support to a Third Party

When internal IT departments can’t keep up with support tickets or need to focus attention on other projects, it may be time to offload user support to a third party.

Another common situation is that business managers and other higher-ups get tied up in IT problems when their time could be better spent focusing on other areas of the business.

Outsourcing user support is a cost-effective way to maintain fast, high-quality IT systems and keep productivity up.

A third-party IT provider can not only help you solve problems when they arise, but they can also help you choose the best IT tools for the greatest efficiency in your team, and implement those solutions and provide user training.

Not all employees will be equally tech-savvy. If a business finds that productivity decreases when they’re trying to implement or manage a new IT solution, it may be time to bring in a team of professionals to help manage these new solutions. And if communication, productivity, and employee satisfaction are stagnant or decreasing, getting the input of IT experts with experience in your industry can help turn things around.

The Goal of Lifecycle Management

Lifecycle management is the process of managing the complete lifecycle of a tech system. It not only covers purchasing and installing new hardware, but it also manages decommissioning or upgrading existing systems to meet current needs, implementing solutions that are long-lasting and scalable, and considering long-term equipment needs.

Working with a company that can provide you with 360-degree solutions, from installation all the way through to maintenance and decommissioning, can significantly benefit a business through savings in both costs and time.

With the right lifecycle management for your IT infrastructure, you can reduce costs and avoid disastrous events that leave you with equipment that’s all down at the same time.

User Training and Self-Help

When businesses implement new IT solutions, there must be a level of training for all employees.

This training should inform employees to gain knowledge of the new system and how they can access help themselves through services such as IT support and online chat support.

ISG’s Service Desk allows employees to reach out throughout the day and get help from certified engineers to assist with any tech-related problem they experience.

Top-Rated IT Services Keep Your Business Flowing

For companies to remain competitive, they need business-optimizing IT solutions.

ISG Technology understands that, while it is essential to streamline business with IT solutions, there is a learning curve to overcome before productivity increases. We’re here to make your day-to-day life as easy as possible, from implementation to employee training to support.

Through services such as ISG’s service desk and M365 offerings, companies have IT help desk solutions and IT support to mitigate issues that may occur in downtime and productivity. 

Work with ISG Tech for professional, reliable IT solutions that keep your company moving and your employees happy.

Keeping IT Systems Up & Running in Mid-Market Companies

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Maintaining your IT infrastructure is essential to your company’s day-to-day functions. If an essential part of your system goes down, your business will grind to a halt. And downtime is expensive: mid-size companies lose around $5600 per minute when their IT systems fail.

Downtime also affects your reputation with consumers. Any time they cannot reach you, they leave with a negative impression, which they’ll remember the next time it comes to choosing between you and your competitors.

Proactive IT maintenance is the solution to preventing IT breakdowns. When you make your IT infrastructure a priority from the start, you minimize downtime and streamline customer interactions.

Best IT Practices for Managing Your IT Infrastructure

Keeping your IT infrastructure well maintained requires constant vigilance and a variety of regular responsibilities. To ensure your system runs smoothly and consistently, you’ll need to:

  • Maintain security: Check for suspicious activity, install updates, monitor password use, and test the security system. 
  • Replace outdated and defective hardware: Old computers and other hardware components are inefficient and costly to maintain. 
  • Carry out backup maintenance: Verify your backups, watch for backup notifications, and monitor for errors to keep your system viable.
  • Maintain software purchases and updates: Ensure that patches and updates are applied automatically as soon as they’re released for the best performance and security.
  • Monitor data storage and bandwidth: If your storage fills up or your bandwidth becomes overloaded, this will lead to significant slowdowns.

This list is not exhaustive; the comprehensive list of necessary IT tasks for successful infrastructure maintenance is long and often complicated, but these are basic practices every business can start with.

The Critical Importance of Proactivity

The goal of all this monitoring and maintenance is to prevent issues before they happen through proactive measures.

Using a preventative strategy instead of merely reacting to issues and slowdowns after they occur saves you time and money. Although everyone comes across a situation that requires a little IT help every now and then, in the ideal situation, you don’t even have to call your IT provider for support because they keep your systems moving behind the scenes.

Transitioning from a Reactive to a Proactive Approach

A reactive approach looks like this: You run into an IT problem that shuts down part of your operations, you call a break/fix provider, they help you remotely or make their way to your office—maybe immediately, but maybe taking several hours to get there—and they fix your problem. Then they send you an invoice for an amount that wasn’t disclosed beforehand, and the process repeats the next time you face an issue, and the next, and the next.

The whole process is unreliable, often expensive and slow, and definitely inefficient because it slows productivity while your employees are waiting for the problem to be fixed.

A proactive approach looks like this: Your systems are always up and running.

That’s pretty much it! But that’s because your IT team has taken the steps to implement IT systems that can support your operations fully, monitoring systems that alert them when there’s suspicious activity or potential vulnerabilities so they can patch them before they cause problems, and long-term strategies that plan for updates and improvements as your business grows and technology evolves.

Transitioning to a proactive approach to IT can be as simple as changing your IT provider. It does require adjusting your budget to account for continual monitoring and support, but it saves you money in the long run because there are no unpredictable costs involved: users switching to managed IT services actually save money, sometimes as much as 25% of their previous IT maintenance costs. You benefit from a more efficient system and improve your bottom line at the same time.

If your internal IT department isn’t taking a proactive approach through monitoring, long-term strategizing, and more, it may be time to consider hiring outside experts to help your team set up the right solutions.

Utilizing ITIL for Your Baseline IT Strategy

ITIL, or the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a compilation of best practices for IT service management and processes. Whoever runs your IT needs to be up to date on ITIL and use it to create a stable IT environment that can adapt to your company’s changing needs.

ITIL contains the expertise of IT professionals around the world and applies to nearly every industry. IT specialists consider it the most comprehensive guide to IT management. It includes best practices for:

  • IT service management
  • IT asset management
  • Driving stakeholder value
  • Aligning IT strategies with business goals
  • Optimizing all-around IT performance

The ITIL is a great place to start when it comes to optimizing your systems for uptime and creating your information technology strategy.

The Best Strategy for Smooth Day-to-Day IT

Working with professionals who provide managed network services is the best way to proactively and consistently keep your IT systems up and running. 

ISG is a leader in managed IT services. We bring our expertise to your IT infrastructure and software to ensure you avoid costly downtime and benefit from the latest technology.

ISG also has a sophisticated team of certified engineers who keep your infrastructure in top shape—including your server, routers, firewall, SANS, and access points. The best talent in the industry is on call for your business.

Keep your IT in top shape by using ISG Technology’s managed network services. Contact us today to get started.

Making Technology a Strategic Differentiator in Your Mid-Sized Business

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In a business world where companies face fierce competition and operate on razor-thin margins, any advantage helps. Today, technology is consistently the biggest strategic differentiator that businesses can use to get ahead, operate more productively, and ultimately become more profitable.

The dilemma is that many businesses don’t know how to use technology efficiently to optimize on the possibilities it opens up.

Learning to utilize technology effectively in your business is the key to reaching your company’s full potential.

Challenges of Mid-Market IT Operations

Mid-market businesses in particular face distinct challenges. For instance, some common issues many mid-market companies share include:

  • No dedicated IT department or IT professional on staff: As smaller companies grow, they often don’t prioritize growing their IT resources to match the needs of the company. This leads to a lack of a dedicated IT team to lead the way in optimizing technology for business growth.
  • The CFO taking on the role of CIO: Similar to the above point, when businesses grow without expanding IT resources as well, it often leads to other team members or leadership inheriting the role of IT decision-maker. Not only does this distract from your staff’s main responsibilities, it means you don’t have the specialized personnel or knowledge needed to make the most beneficial IT decisions.
  • No specialized cybersecurity strategy: By 2025, cyber attacks will cost the world $10.5 trillion annually. Mid-market companies that don’t prioritize IT are usually either extremely underprepared for a cyber attack or are using security protocols that actually inhibit user experience and your team’s productivity.
  • Balancing long-term strategy with immediate needs: Without a dedicated CIO planning for the future while ensuring smooth IT operations in the present, any IT support you do have will likely be focused on putting out fires as they appear. A strategic IT structure will both prevent issues now and set you up for long-term success, but that’s hard to get in place when you have limited resources that are already focused on merely trying to keep up with breaks as they happen.

When struggling to deal with the above challenges, companies expose themselves to considerable risk.

Lack of a certified IT professional on staff gives workers few options when an IT problem arises. Most solutions are band aids that don’t protect or improve the company long term. The CFO is forced to split time trying to fulfill a CIO role. And, not having the resources to focus on security, companies make critical mistakes in their IT security protocols that cost them time, efficiency, and in the case of an attack, money.

Winning Companies Embracing Tech

Companies must review and plan for IT security to ensure their long-term growth and stability. Creating a plan with the proper solutions will make the company more efficient and minimize workers’ downtime caused by IT issues. Mid-market companies only have to look to their peers in the marketplace to see how an effective IT solution creates growth.

Companies such as Oak Street Health, Avant, and Adpushup are making great strides in the marketplace with their unique IT solutions.

  • Oak Street Health, a primary care center, incorporates IT into its healthcare model through an in-house data platform that informs patient care, which follows a “managed care” model for older patients and incentivizes higher quality care.
  • Avant is a private online borrowing company that offers loans for middle-class buyers. What sets Avant apart from competitors is its algorithmic, data-driven processes that continually optimize processes and encourage improvements.
  • Finally, ADpushup revolutionized digital marketing with its ad revenue optimization platform.

All three companies have experienced exponential growth by embracing digital transformation. But they aren’t the only industries benefiting from increased use of cutting-edge technology. Manufacturing companies are facing an industry revolution due to advancements in robotics, automation, and 3D printing, and other industries are close behind in the digital transformation trend.

The success of these frontrunners and other businesses embracing technology should be an indicator of other companies in the marketplace’s future.

Prioritizing Proactivity

Business leaders know that the best way to solve problems is to prevent them before they happen. Being proactive in your approach to IT and cybersecurity should be mission-critical in this increasingly digital world.

To keep your business running without disruptions, it’s important to monitor threats proactively and install appropriate solutions for your business needs. While your competitors struggle with understanding their IT landscape, you can focus on growing and scaling your business without the concern of attack.

The Power of Strategic Planning with a vCIO

To best equip your company for success, you need to have a strong IT strategy that utilizes all the tools available to you. Consulting with a vCIO who provides individualized IT consulting is key to your business security and success.

Your vCIO will share expert industry advice and solutions designed to give your company the competitive edge it needs to differentiate and avoid costly risks.

To find a vCIO specializing in your industry, contact us at ISG Technology today.

ISG Technology and Twin Valley Communications Aligning Services to Help Businesses Adapt to Pandemic

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Twin Valley Management, an Overland Park, Kansas-based holding company for Twin Valley and ISG Technology, is announcing its plan to improve the technological capabilities of organizations in underserved areas of North Central Kansas. Twin Valley Communications is among the largest privately-held telecommunications companies in Kansas and ISG Technology is a leader in IT cloud & managed services in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.

This comes on the heels of Twin Valley being awarded $1.3 million of CARES Act and Connectivity Emergency Response grant dollars. Additional investment by Twin Valley of almost $900,000 has been committed to deploy a combination of fiber to the premise & fixed wireless broadband services. Twin Valley Communications will also utilize the CBRS spectrum that it won at auction.

President and CEO of ISG and Twin Valley, Ben Foster stated, “There are so many businesses, schools, hospitals and local governments in these areas that simply don’t have access to the broadband needed to enable things like remote work, virtual healthcare and distance learning. We’re trying to fix that.”

Foster continued to talk about their strategy to combine Twin Valley’s broadband services with ISG’s suite of managed IT services and its data center offering to provide a complete technology solution for organizations in rural areas. “Unfortunately, many businesses spend countless hours stuck in the middle of a blame game when issues arise. The ISP points the finger at the IT provider and vice versa. When we deliver bundled connectivity and IT, the client knows who to call. We see a massive opportunity to create new value in the fiber-optic broadband, managed IT & cloud services space.”

The companies are focused on helping businesses in these areas adapt to the changing work environment the pandemic has created. Bringing together broadband and managed IT services allows companies to stay connected and focus on their core business.

In addition to providing Gigabit service to businesses and households in cities that are covered by the 15-mile fiber optic cable build-out – hundreds of households will have fixed wireless broadband speeds up to 100 megabits/second. This infrastructure will pass through multiple cities and will provide the foundation for future investment and even faster connections.

Webinar: Strengthen Security Ops & Tackle Threats

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By now you know that Covid-19 has expanded the attack surface, making businesses across the globe more vulnerable to attacks via remote workforces and security policies built on the fly. You also know that a layered security approach is the solution. 

But what does a complete security strategy entail? How do you know what layers to add? And how do you get there?

In this webinar, Lane Roush, Vice President of Pre-Sales Systems Engineering for Arctic Wolf, utilizes his 20+ years of experience in IT infrastructure, storage, compute, networking and security to layout a more cost effective way of layering your security strategy.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to strengthen your security operations
  • What the NIST Cybersecurity framework is and how to complete it
  • Tackling a hybrid-remote workforce during COVID-19
  • How ISG + Arctic Wolf can help

Who Should Watch?

Business and IT leaders who are responsible for business continuity, disaster recovery and data protection.

Webinar: Maintaining Security, Adapting To Change

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The world has changed. The volume and velocity of digital data is growing exponentially. And maintaining control in a world where every device is storing and computing data makes it more difficult. 

So, how do you deal with the rapid pace of change? How do you maintain security?

In this webinar, James Morrison, former FBI Computer Scientist focused on Cybersecurity and current HPE Distinguished Technologist, utilizes his 20+ years of experience with the FBI to help business and IT leaders grapple with the rapid pace of change they are experiencing. Here’s what you’ll learn:

What You’ll Learn:

  • The reality of the threats you face in a COVID-19 world
  • What a holistic approach to cyber security looks like
  • How to properly invest in your security operation
  • The 7 habits of highly effective security organizations
  • How ISG + HPE can help

Who Should Watch?

Business and IT leaders who are responsible for business continuity, disaster recovery and data protection.

4 Signs Your Current IT Staff Is Overworked and What You Can Do About It

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If you think that your IT staff is overworked, you are probably right. Technology needs have only increased as cyberattacks are becoming more common, businesses are having to work remotely during the global pandemic, and customers still expect round-the-clock service.

But what are the specific symptoms that your staff has too much to handle, and how can you provide your IT specialists with support that will have immediate and lasting benefits?

Here are 4 clear signs that your IT staff is overworked and what you can do to supplement your technology management using outsourced services:

1. Troubleshooting technology is getting in the way of running your business.

Technological firefighting here and there is an integral feature of what IT teams do. However, constant troubleshooting stands in the way of progress and evolution, consequently leaving the business one step behind its competitors. IT disruptions can become especially damaging when your IT staff is forced to delegate tech responsibilities to other, untrained members of your staff, such as your front desk representative.

For businesses who are constantly putting out IT fires, a Managed Service Provider is an excellent solution to minimize downtime and allow you to focus on core operations rather than IT issues.

A Managed Service Provider can offer co-managed IT services to supplement the efforts of your current team, taking away the burden of day-to-day troubleshooting. They allow your IT team to focus on key developments by delivering instant transformations that cover everything from software licensing and updates to identifying system shortcomings and areas of improvement. 

The major benefit to co-managed IT services is that you can choose just how much of your IT management needs to be outsourced. Whether you need project management services or enhanced cybersecurity, an MSP can cater according to your specific needs. IT staff will subsequently be far less stressed, which boosts productivity and morale.

2. Your cybersecurity isn’t being updated.

The palpable shift in the business landscape towards a completely digital environment has put businesses under heightened pressure to master every aspect of cybersecurity, attempting to combat attacks that statistically occur every 39 seconds.

Implementing a strategy that encompasses protection against malware, phishing scams, ransomware, and viruses is one thing. However, achieving advanced cybersecurity—which often includes eliminating siloed data, continuous system monitoring, and Dark Web scanning—is an ongoing process that your current IT team likely won’t have time for amidst solving day-to-day IT issues. 

Additionally, persisting with manual analysis and security management won’t work because new threats surface daily. In addition to implementing the right security systems, your company must pay attention to ongoing developments in cybersecurity. Many in-house teams simply don’t have the time or resources to stay continually educated on increasing threats and ways to combat them.

Inferior cybersecurity results in monetary losses as well as lost trust from clients, employees, and business partners alike. A round-the-clock monitoring system that prevents infiltrations and initiates automated responses to limit damages when cybercriminals strike is therefore critical to protect your business.

Outsourced IT services with 24/7 tracking and alert notifications is a great way to support your current IT team in securing your infrastructure. An outsourced professional has the time to learn about your specific security risks and implement solutions that protect your systems, data, and customers while delivering peace of mind to C-level execs.

They also provide services such as Dark Web scanning and 24/7 system monitoring to free up your in-house IT staff’s time while also staying on top of potential threats at all times. With an MSP, you can maximize your cybersecurity investments and avoid data theft that can prove extremely costly to your business and its reputation.

3. Your network infrastructure is struggling to keep up with business growth.

Every business must find the balance between immediate challenges and long-term ambitions. With regards to IT teams, the two key ingredients are 1) a support staff that can handle the day-to-day IT needs of the business, and 2) a team of professionals who can oversee big-picture technology developments. 

If either of these teams are understaffed, you face a major issue. Either you experience more daily IT disruptions because staff are too focused on big-picture planning, or you experience slow growth and wasted technology investments because staff are too focused on solving immediate problems.

Rather than pay exorbitant amounts of money to add more in-house professionals to your team to combat these problems, an MSP can add value where it’s needed—whether you need consulting or daily support. They also employ analytical tools to help forecast growth and plan appropriate structural changes so you can develop a scalable infrastructure in the process.

4. You don’t have a business-aligned IT strategy implemented.

IT services rely heavily on optimized efficiency and productivity, which can only be achieved when you align advanced modern tools and processes to your company’s technological objectives. 

Developing a comprehensive and robust strategy is essential for propelling your business forward and leveraging the latest tech systems. Crucially, all IT strategies should be fluid, because the digital landscape is continually evolving.

Fostering strategic communications, both internally and externally, should also relate back to the company vision while an action plan powered by in-depth market research and forecasting is established. A comprehensive strategy must focus on monitoring performances and adapting strategies as you add new processes or scale.

Ultimately, if the frameworks of an IT strategy aren’t established, IT teams can only ever produce limited results. Regular review systems ensure that the strategy never becomes obsolete.

For the sake of your company, IT department, and all employees using computer tech, outsourcing certain IT management tasks can be hugely beneficial. Beyond simply saving you money in having to hire more in-house personnel, they act as a right-hand man to your current staff, working in tandem to fully optimize your IT infrastructure.