The process of insourcing corporate administration and management functions from a third party is commonly referred to as managed services. This concept isn't limited to IT because managed services can include anything from supply chain management to marketing strategies to call center operations. However, the most frequently occurring type of managed service is managed IT services. Managed service providers are great for smaller firms because they allow the business owner to focus on important aspects of the business, instead of spending all the time trying to hire competent staff to fill in the IT department, for example. As of 2019, the global market for managed services provided to firms reach 185.98 billion dollars, and these numbers are only expected to rise with it projected to reach as much as 356.24 billion dollars by 2025. As we can see from the statistics themselves, it’s a collective industry consensus that managed service providers can really help your business stand out in the market. But, how exactly do managed services end up being the nudge needed to turn your business around for the better?
Scalability
It goes without saying that maintaining an in-house IT team can be a huge cost to any company. It's very common for businesses to have IT teams that are overwhelmed with work, understaffed, or even possibly ‘handicapped’ to an extent if one specialised staff member goes on vacation or is absent in any way from the office. This can lead to low productivity in the IT team and an even higher chance of technical difficulties occurring and affecting other departments in the office. This can impede the work of everyone in the firm in a domino effect. If your company were to expand, it could be quite difficult to simultaneously expand your IT team as well. It can take months to train a new employee for a new, upsized IT Department. Additionally, you never know how long an employee will stay in your company for, and you will have to employ new staff members and start the whole process again. Along with the expansion, you will also have to expand and upscale all your IT equipment, networks, servers etc. However, all these disadvantages are easily avoided when using a managed service provider. Managed service providers are very flexible when your business needs to upgrade, expand or even downsize. They have the resources and can accommodate expansion changes in a way an in-house team would not be able to. Furthermore, they would never face the issues of being understaffed, overwhelmed or unavailable to meet your IT needs at any point in time as they have a plethora of trained IT professionals who are on call throughout the day.
Professionals in the business
When hiring employees for an in-house IT team, it's difficult to truly judge their qualifications and experience unless the employees are faced with a highly strenuous situation to really test their skills. In case of all the employees in your IT team are faced with a situation where they are unsure of how to proceed further with, you will end up losing valuable time and money consulting other sources on the best way to resolve the issue. Instead of stressing over the competency of your in-house IT team, it's good to keep in mind that managed service providers always have trained IT professionals on call who know the market best practices and have a lot of experience from dealing with other clients. Even if your IT team are qualified enough to handle any situation that may be thrown their way, in the case of an expansion, they may not be familiar with new systems or upgrades added to your upscaled business. Again, for an in-house team to get familiar with the new systems it will take a lot of time, patience and training. Whereas managed service providers are already familiar with all the systems on the market.
The aim of any business owner is to grow their business over time. To do this, a lot of business decisions have to be made taking into account how said decisions will fair in the long run. With that in mind, it's easy to see why managed service providers are simply the most cost-efficient and long term viable choice for business owners to make from the very inception of their SME. Managed service providers are also very flexible when your business is ready to expand, so no nuances will hold back any business growth. They are simply the more competitively viable choice and can be the key element that can turn your business around for the better.
