5 Reasons Co-Managed IT Could Be the Best Solution for Your Business

co-managed IT services provider

Whether your business is navigating simply trying to stay ahead of the challenges posed by coronavirus or you’re experiencing growth, supplementing your IT department can be highly beneficial. 

It is undeniable that today more than ever, businesses rely on their IT specialists to streamline operations, maintain a competitive edge, and guarantee 100% uptime. Staying competitive in such a fierce market can require you to implement alternative solutions that are more efficient and cost-effective. 

One of those is MSP or Managed Service Provider who can offer bundled services—often in the form of a co-managed IT solution to supplement your current IT staff. Here are 5 reasons co-managed IT could be the best solution for your business:

1. They Help Relieve Your IT Specialist

There can be a number of situations in which a company might consider implementing co-managed IT services to improve the functioning of an internal IT department. Maybe your in-house specialists need help with day-to-day operations (backups, troubleshooting, upgrades), or they would benefit from external resources to design a long-term IT strategy. 

If this happens as your company is entering a moment of rapid growth, your existing department or specialist can struggle to remain up to date or competitive. Additionally, it is worth considering that today’s companies rely on 100% uptime to increase sales, streamline remote working procedures, and ensure data security. 

Having a resource to better delegate the different IT tasks and duties can be key. Aside from ensuring that all the routine checks and helpdesk services are fulfilled, leveraging MSPs to assist your IT department is paramount to create a long-term strategy that can set the company apart from the competition.

2. You Get Access to More IT Specialties

Each company is bound to have a specific budget to dedicate to their IT department. Regardless of how large or limited that is, it might never allow you to implement enough specialists to cover all the functions and knowledge needed. Leveraging the services of co-managed IT providers will enable you to get a broader team on your side. 

Managed Service Providers, because they need to service a wide range of clients with different IT needs, hire expert IT professionals with varying backgrounds, expertise, and skills. In turn, you have a diversely skilled set of professionals to assist your current IT staff, which means greater knowledge you can use and benefit from. 

The advantages of a skill-diversified team are undeniable, and, in this case, your company can benefit from more professionals for a limited cost, as well.

3. You Save Money

Managed Service Providers are becoming increasingly popular for companies who prefer to invest their IT budget more wisely. As we have seen above, this strategy allows you to relieve your in-house IT specialists and tap into a broader skill and knowledge set. 

Achieving this by hiring several, full-salaried specialists can be incredibly expensive for a company, especially while it is still young or growing. Instead, co-managed IT providers allow you to cut back on unnecessary software subscriptions and reduce salaries expenditure because they have added time for consulting. 

Additionally, since often co-managed IT services come at a fixed price per month, you can design a budget that takes into consideration this cost while avoiding surprises or unforeseen expenditures. This fixed cost is also highly affordable, as MSPs usually come at the price of about one salaried employee.

4. You Get Improved IT Strategy

Simply, if your in-house IT specialist or department has to focus on the growing need for helpdesk services, backups, and upgrades, it will struggle to remain up to date with the latest strategies and technologies. Instead, a co-managed IT setup allows you to have a full team of specialists that can keep up with the latest IT developments. 

This strategy allows your company to take a step back and actually look at the bigger picture. By doing so, you can create short and long-term strategies that align with your goals, mission, and values. 

Your co-managed IT service provider, because they are assisting with the big-picture IT developments, gets to know your company better before crafting a tailored design for your needs and has the time to spend developing the right strategy.

5. You Get Round-the-Clock Support

For how hard your current in-house department or IT specialist might be working, getting 24-hour support and monitoring is a challenging goal to achieve.

At the same time, especially if your company is becoming international, your customers and workers might need access to your website, platforms, and virtual tools round the clock. In some instances, maintaining the same availability of services and products outside of business hours is essential to maintain a continuous stream of customers and buyers. 

With co-managed IT services, your company, customers, and teams can get 24/7 support and monitoring. Primarily, these providers ensure that all of your platforms and systems are working monitored all day long to eliminate downtime and security threats. 

Ultimately, if your company is entering a period of growth and expansion, this simple implementation allows your business to grow constantly, without having to be limited to standard office hours. Co-managed IT provides a range of benefits, from cost savings to extended support and a wider range of services—all of which can be key to helping your business thrive during these unprecedented times.