Today, many business owners are inquiring about managed services for their IT infrastructure. One of the first questions commonly asked is why should I do it when what I have been doing up until now has been working. The answer is simple, you’ll save money in the long run. Picture this, you’re a small to medium sized business owner and find yourself looking at an IT disaster and you don’t know where to begin because what you thought you had been doing was working. Today is not your day, you get hit with a server that goes down or corrupt data do to a virus that is spreading through your network. You call the local IT company that you find on the internet and they are glad to take on the emergency task but they know nothing about your infrastructure now but will learn about it when they arrive onsite. Keep in mind you are paying a large hourly fee for them to learn about your systems used, what you had been doing up until now, and finally what the situation is. How high is this IT bill going to be when the situation is resolved? If you had managed IT services in your budget you would not have to worry about this problem.
So exactly is managed services? A managed services agreement means that you have an IT provider who looks after your systems regularly for a monthly fee instead of working on an “I’ll call you when it’s broken” basis. This method usually results is unexpected HIGH expenses. With managed services, you are in control of your monthly budget and you avoid the issue being down and not able to tend to your customers. If the provider is doing the job correctly and performing a proactive approach, then the chances of an IT disaster are much less because they are monitoring your systems on a daily basis and should be 1 step ahead of a problem.
Are They Open 24/7/365? – Technology issues don’t wait for you to be up and about. They usually happen at the worst possible time. Ask your IT company that is offering managed services if they are available at all hours of the day to fix an issue and how quickly can they deploy a team onsite if needed.
Can they speak the language you understand without getting enraged? Lets face it, technology can be quite challenging and explaining how it will work and keep your business moving in the right direction can sometimes be challenging to understand. Choose a managed services vendor that can take the time to explain things calmly and be informative at the same time.
Team of Professionals. They can talk the talk but can they walk the walk? Make sure your vendor has the experience on a wide variety of systems and platforms. Don’t hesitate to ask them upfront if they are familiar with your hardware and software setup. Have they worked on these systems in the past and what types of disasters did they resolve. Get references!
If you are a small to medium sized business then managed services are a great way to keep IT costs down. To learn more about managed IT services, please contact us at Alpha Geeks Onsite or call us at 844-ALPHAGEEKS. 844-257-4243
