Understanding Managed IT Services and How They Can Eliminate Technology Pains for Small and Mid-Size Businesses

Information Technology (IT) has become a significant consideration for small and mid-size companies, with business owners under constant pressure to conduct business more efficiently and improve the productivity of their employees, while simultaneously reducing cost.

Unfortunately, computers often are struck with problems such as spam, viruses, and security threats, and server and e-mail access malfunctions cause em­ployees to sit idle. Company systems often do not operate at their optimal level to fully satisfy the business needs, and a huge amount of downtime is experienced waiting for a technician to solve each problem.

Having a dedicated IT department is not a viable option for most small businesses, and very few small companies can afford to deploy even one permanent IT employee. Fortunately, there is an emerging and quickly growing solution known as “Managed IT Ser­vices” to help.

These days, a growing number of IT vendors, resellers, and telecom carriers are providing managed services based on remote, proactive monitoring of company networks on an ongoing basis – with minimal involvement of the small business owners. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) employ consultants who specialize in small business networks, computer support and security and offer a range of services, including Computer & Server Support, Data Backup & Disaster Recovery, Remote Network Monitoring and Network security.

Managed IT services are provided by an outside firm or IT consulting company for a fixed monthly fee. Unlike the traditional ‘break/fix’ model, where IT consultants are not motivated to keep the client’s systems running efficiently because the consultant makes more money when the technology breaks down, a managed IT Services provider is fully focused on keeping your sys­tems up and running because repeated technology fail­ures mean higher costs to them. Therefore, the managed services model is beneficial to both the small business owner and the technology expert because small businesses have the advantage of lower rates and better services, while technology experts get the fixed monthly fee from multiple customers.

Small and mid-size business owners should consider managed IT services to leverage the latest remote network monitoring and maintenance services, resolve technology problems before they can disrupt the business and help them stay focused on what really matters.

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