Employing a company to manage your IT services comes with many benefits:
- Proactive management of your account
- Ongoing monitoring of your IT
- On-call support when you need it most
… and that’s just the start.
Managed IT is also much more cost-effective. Whether you’re a small business with less than 10 employees or a large corporation with 100+ employees, you’ll find that outsourcing your IT management is financially viable for two reasons.
- You only pay for what you need. Most IT management companies will tailor their service around the size and complexity of your business. As your business grows, you can expand the number of services you need.
- You pay the same set fee every month. This makes it easy to budget around your managed IT service.
So, what else should you expect from managed IT services?
What is included in Managed IT Services?
For many business owners who aren’t IT minded, you’ll want an IT team that does the job without fuss. In fact, if your IT support team is doing the right thing, you shouldn’t notice any issues. When you have a team of specialist engineers working for you, not only will everything tick along as expected, they’ll also make continuous changes to improve internal productivity and data security.
Proactive Vs Reactive
Fixing a problem before it happens should be a standard IT service. Rather than only resolving issues, your IT support should be looking at proactive ways to improve your IT system. This may be in the form of a managed backup service that ensures all files are backed up on a regular basis. Just as important as backing up data is the security of your data. Your managed IT service should ensure that your anti-virus and anti-spam is up to date and working efficiently. When your IT is managed efficiently, it allows you to get on with the important job of running your business.
Monitoring
Monitoring relates to both internal and external IT operations of your business. This works hand-in-hand with proactive solutions, as monitoring will pick up issues before they become critical. Daily monitoring of the network and servers will analyse performance and determine whether maintenance and upgrades are needed.
Support
It would be naïve to assume that nothing will ever go wrong with your IT. Having ongoing support is essential to any managed IT service. You should expect:
- Unlimited remote support
- Locally based technical help desk
- 24/7 on-call support
- Onsite support as and when needed
- Monthly account management meetings discussing IT performance
Why should you use Managed IT Services?
Businesses have two options when it comes to IT. They can employ an internal team to handle all IT tasks during business hours or engage the services of an external company and get access to a team of specialist engineers and 24/7 support. Already you can see why outsourcing your IT services is beneficial. Here are a few more reasons to consider managed IT services.
Reduce Costs
By implementing best practices and more efficient operations you can reduce your IT costs. This may be an immediate saving by reducing or improving the software your company uses or ongoing savings via improved productivity.
Network Security
Data security should be a primary concern for any business. As technology becomes more complex, the threat of attack increases. Using a team that can ensure your network security is at its maximum 24/7 will give you complete peace of mind and minimise interruptions to your day-to-day business operations.
Access to a team of specialists
While many businesses may still employ an internal IT person, this person can’t be expected to do the job of a team of specialists. Having an external team monitoring every aspect of your IT and working with your internal IT person will deliver more reliability and increased performance across your overall system. You’ll notice a dramatic decrease in network downtime and, as mentioned above, a vast improvement in security.
If you want solutions to improve your IT and strengthen your data security, talk to Austin Technology. We work with many of Australia’s leading companies who understand the importance of IT and the positive impact of a managed IT service.
Contact Austin Technology today and chat with one of our specialists about a managed IT service for your business.
