Managed services have been around for ages. For example, wealthy individuals will often hire someone to take care of their extravagant home, like doing the housework or tending to the garden. Did you know that managed services can be acquired by the average business owner to further enhance their organization’s operations?
Managed services are rather simple to understand, even from a business perspective. Let’s say that your organization focuses on providing a specific service to your area. This means that you’ve dedicated significant time and effort into honing your craft. There are countless other businesses in your region, too, all dedicated to pursuing their own industry or market. When you invest so much time into something, it’s natural that there will be others who have more skill in a particular craft than others. For example, a marketing company may be great at advertising, but falls short when it comes to waiting on tables and supplying food for hungry customers during a lunch rush.
In essence, managed services (also known as outsourcing) use your organization’s operational budget to eliminate certain capital expenses. In particular, you’ll notice that your technology requires extra loving care in order to stay functional, but not just anyone is qualified to administer this care. If you want to capitalize on your technological investment, it’s imperative that your hardware is cared for by someone who knows what they’re doing.
The problem with this is that many small and medium-sized organizations struggle to find the money in their budget to hire an on-site technician, let alone an entire IT department. This leads them to outsourcing to solve the problem of IT maintenance. Then, of course, the next question that needs to be asked is whether to go with a general-purpose break-fix IT company that only resolves problems when they happen, versus a managed service provider which prevents problems from happening altogether.
The conundrum isn’t necessarily a difficult one, as the solution is common-sense. Look at this issue from a financial standpoint. When your critical systems fail, you’re likely going to be replacing some pretty expensive hardware, like server units or workstations. This can put a huge dent in your budget. Then, while your technology is being fixed, you have workers sitting around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for your business to get its act together. This wastes even more time and money. This is how break-fix IT works. You get your technology fixed when it breaks, rather than taking a proactive approach to prevent major problems.
On the other hand, you have managed IT. With its monthly payments and proactive solutions, managed IT is the exact opposite of break-fix IT. By preventing issues from evolving into huge problems that could cost your business in the long run, managed IT manages to successfully save your organization time and money. You’ll experience minimal technology trouble and downtime, all while taking a capital expense and transforming it into an operational expense.
To learn more about what managed IT solutions can do for your business, reach out to Flexnet Networks LLC at (432) 520-3539.
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