Why You Need Managed IT Services

Kris WilkinsonMay 5, 2021

Cyber-Security News/Blog

Technology is advancing at unprecedented rates. Staying current, protected, and leveraging technology to help your team reach its full potential truly requires expertise and continuous improvement. All businesses should now have their systems monitored, maintained, automated, and frequently checked against best practices to avoid falling behind and exposing the business to unnecessary risk.

As a business leader, you need to focus on growing your business and success heavily depends on having the right technical team in place to support it. IT is much more than a helpdesk. Managed Services Providers (MSP) offer safety, security, and expertise that can reduce your operating costs, prevent downtime, and take your business where it wants to go.

Should I get managed services or on-demand IT services?

It is always better to get managed services. On-demand IT services are reactive, rather than proactive. Reactive services can fix the problem, but they rarely prevent it in the first place. Most reactive issues are preventable and, in an age where security is the highest priority, reacting to a security incident is the worst-case scenario.

Save money and increase revenue

Employees are expensive. Downtime or delays cost money.

If a PC impacts an employee’s performance by one minute per-hour every day, it adds up to approximately 34 hours lost each year. If your business charges $150 per hour, the impact is approximately $5,100 of potential revenue per year per employee. Imagine if it was 5 minutes per hour or the entire team is impacted by regular  outages.

Ensuring technology operates at optimal efficiency should be a top priority. While hiring an MSP may seem expensive, great MSPs deliver value. Using our example above and a hypothetical cost of $150 per user per month for Managed IT Services, if the MSP helps you recover the lost time throughout the year, you end up with a surplus of $3,300 per employee.

In the MSP industry, there is a term called RHEM, which stands for Reactive Hours per Employee per Month. RHEM is the average number of support hours required per employee each month.

Mature and proactive MSPs track RHEM with the intention of reducing the amount over time with a proactive process (e.g. replacing aging equipment, resolving problematic trends, etc.).

How is your business doing? Score yourself:

RHEM is calculated by dividing the total number of support hours per month by the total number of employees.

RHEM Status
< 0.5 hrs Excellent
0.5 hrs – 1.0 hrs Good
1.0 hrs – 1.5 hrs High
1.5 hrs+ Very High

Low RHEM means your MSP is doing well. RHEM is often much higher without an MSP. When RHEM is high, your team is often unhappy with its technology, and performance (aka. revenue) is impacted.

Safety and Security

In a digital age where breaches are announced almost every day, it can be challenging to truly understand if you’re doing enough to protect yourself. Terms like cyber-security, hacking, phishing, and artificial intelligence are everywhere, what really matters?

The reality is, low-hanging fruit is often the first to be hit- the size of the business doesn’t really matter. There are certain fundamentals every business should invest in to reduce unnecessary risk. Cyberattacks, such as ransomware, can cost your company millions.

Here are a few statistics:

  1. Cyberattacks occur every 14 seconds (Varonis).
  2. There is one ransomware victim every 10 seconds (Infosecurity magazine).
  3. Cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 Trillion annually by 2025 (Forbes).
  4. Data breaches cost, on average, $3.86 million USD (Varonis).

MSPs often have experienced security teams that help establish appropriate security systems, protocols, and procedures to protect your business. An MSP can help you reduce unnecessary risk and stay on top of emerging best practices to keep you safe.

Supporting business goals and growth

A proactive Managed Services Provider (MSP) can help ensure your technology solutions support and align with your business goals. They often eliminate business challenges by implementing appropriate technology solutions.

Here are some of the key benefits proactive MSPs offer:

  1. A 2 to 3-year project roadmap including anticipated costs
  2. Regular business reviews with a dedicated vCIO to review the roadmap, discuss emerging best practices, and look for solutions to incoming business challenges
  3. Annual budgeting assistance based on the strategic roadmap that aligns with your business goals
  4. Compliance analysts that regularly check your systems against best-practices
  5. 24/7 monitoring, proactive maintenance, and zero-day updates
  6. A dedicated helpdesk team that knows your systems and continuously builds documentation
  7. Asset management – automated equipment and license tracking (make, model, serial number, assigned to, warranty, etc.)
  8. 3rd party platform and vendor vetting to protect the business
  9. Equipment sourcing to maintain standards, quality, and supply chain protection

What if I already have an internal IT employee?

Many MSPs work with internal IT personnel by providing expertise, services, and manpower where the internal team is lacking. MSPs also provide access to powerful enterprise tools that would normally be too expensive for a small or medium-sized business to install, maintain, and support on their own. These systems cost millions. By partnering with an MSP, you benefit from them without the upfront cost.

Conclusion

Managing technology and dealing with IT problems can be especially difficult if you don’t have the time or expertise to do so. Staying current, protected, and leveraging technology to help your team reach its full potential truly requires expertise and continuous improvement. All businesses should now have their systems monitored, maintained, automated, and frequently checked against best practices to avoid falling behind and exposing the business to unnecessary risk.

Managed Services Providers (MSP) offer safety, security, and expertise that can reduce your operating costs, increase revenue, prevent downtime, and take your business where it wants to go.

Looking for a Managed Services Provider? SIRKit can help. Reach out to us today for a no-obligation consultation on how we can help your business run more efficiently.