Managed Services are not new anymore. It has been a long time that businesses have figured out that having a dedicated managed service partner is beneficial in the long run to grow their business effectively. If you just go around and ask businesses why they outsourced managed services, probably you will get a hundred answers – each being different. But, if you see, all of them would be true. Outsourcing has been a long-time player. It has been around since the 1980s when Eastman Kodak made a historic decision to outsource its IT operations in 1989. We have come a long way since them. Over the years, outsourcing has grown, evolved and emerged as a new industry altogether. With the dot com boom, it grew further and we saw the rise of Application Service Provider. But it faded away soon leading the way to Cloud and the emergence of Managed Services. The best thing about managed services and a Managed Service Provider is it can deploy its services no matter the technology used. We can draw an analogy here with that of a great chef. A chef who knows his job well can cook awesome food anywhere – be it in the kitchen or in your garden.
But why people started outsourcing managed services?
There are many advantages to outsourcing IT services through managed services.
Cost
One of the biggest reasons for organizations to outsource their IT services through managed services is cost. It is a model that lets you pay only for the services that you use. It becomes economical for an organization because they don’t need to invest in resources, hire and train people or invest in tools and technologies. In short, it is a cost-effective solution than maintaining an in-house IT department. Outsourcing your IT services helps you to focus on your primary activities and channelize your budget accordingly.
Leverage experts
A managed service provider offers experts from every field of technology who are trained qualified and certified. Managing a diverse in-house talent can be a highly expensive affair especially if you are not a big company. Outsourcing your IT services through Managed Services thus becomes a natural solution.
Complete maintenance and support round the clock
Suppose your server goes down while you’re asleep. Possible right? But you cannot afford to have downtime because downtime means loss of revenue. Having in-house resources to monitor your server 24 hours is, of course, a solution, but might not be feasible. In such a scenario, managed services become a handy option. The managed service providers will usually monitor and offer support and maintenance of the infrastructure 24 / 7. Plus, you have on-call resources to help you troubleshoot in case you have a glitch so that you can fix everything within a minimal downtime.
Stay focused on your core business
Taking complex IT decisions can make you distracted. Let the hassle be taken care of by your IT managed services, while you can focus on your core business. With limited resources, attention, and time managed services do come as a helping hand for organizations who can’t afford to have a dedicated in-house IT team.
Stay up-to-date with compliance and security
Is your firewall up-to-date? Do you audit your workstations and other IT assets? Are you PCI compliant? It is important and critical to stay up-to-date with compliance and security especially if you are dealing with competitive and sensitive customer information like credit card/debit card details. A well-managed service provider helps you to stay compliant with industry standards. It also helps to have your security checks in place so that you don’t fall the next victim of cyber threat.
Quick implementation of new technology
Since more managed service providers have experts and access to new technology, you can expect to have it implemented in your business within minimal time. The same would take much more time, effort and money should it had been done in the house.
From the above discussion, one can infer that each company has their own reason to outsource its IT infrastructure management through managed services. While some try to reduce cost, many businesses outsource to reduce their server downtime while still others want to have a dedicated team for support and maintenance 24 x 7. No matter what, outsourcing through managed services does give a plethora of benefits to organizations which is evident in its popularity.
