To survive and thrive in today’s competitive world, small and midsize companies need their IT systems to be reliable, secure, efficient, and effectively designed to align with their business goals. However, it is often cost-prohibitive for small and midsized businesses to build and maintain an IT system in-house that checks all the boxes they need.
Given the complexity of IT and the crucial role it plays in every aspect of a business’s operations, companies outsource IT more than any other service. In 2023, spending on IT outsourcing is projected to reach $519 billion globally, a 22% increase from 2019 and 71% of the total outsourcing expenditure pie of $731 billion, according to Deloitte. Nearly two-thirds of organizations (63%) cited cost-cutting as an important benefit of outsourcing their IT in the Deloitte report. Here are a few ways that partnering with a managed IT service provider (MSP) can help your company cut costs.
Broad IT Expertise
Building, managing, and securing an enterprise-level IT system requires expertise in a broad spectrum of disciplines, yet each also needs very deep knowledge in their area of expertise – from hardware and software engineering to cybersecurity measures and network administration. Hiring for all the necessary competencies in-house simply does not make sense for many companies. Small and midsize businesses often find themselves unable to afford the high salaries and overhead costs associated with extensive expertise.
By partnering with an MSP, businesses gain access to the provider’s broad talent pool, including engineers with expertise in various disciplines and security specialists with cutting-edge knowledge of best practices. Furthermore, a good MSP also has its own network of technology partners, ensuring they always have the data and knowledge to remain up to date on industry and security best practices. Because managed IT providers work with many clients, they can efficiently provide all of these competencies to your business as needed.
Scalability
As companies go through their lifecycle, they invariably face market forces that require them to scale up or down, sometimes significantly and rapidly. Partnering with an MSP makes it simple to increase or decrease headcount. MSPs generally charge a per-user rate per month, allowing for predictable IT-related costs when you add to your employee roster. If your company lands a big account and suddenly needs to hire 20 people, the MSP simply adds 20 users to your fee. If you have layoffs, the MSP will deduct users. Further, as your company evolves, you can pick and choose the services you want from the MSP’s offerings. You are never stuck paying for services you no longer need.
Security
Cyberattacks have become ubiquitous and more sophisticated in recent years. Given the high cost of an attack – the average breach costs businesses with fewer than 500 employees $2.98 million, according to a report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute – securing your IT system has never been so necessary, yet it has never been so complicated and resource-intensive. MSPs have the expertise and manpower to provide multi-faceted cybersecurity services more efficiently than small to midsize businesses can on their own. Good MSPs will take a multipronged approach to defending your system. Their services include monitoring your system 24x7x365 to detect any suspicious activity and mounting a rapid response should an attack occur. MSPs will install state-of-the-art anti-virus and anti-malware software and firewalls and ensure all hardware and software are up to date, with timely security and patch updates. They will also provide regular audits and penetration testing to pinpoint any weak points in your system that need fortification.
Proactive Maintenance and Support
Because in-house IT departments are often overwhelmed by day-to-day activities, they often take a reactive approach to maintenance and support. In other words, until something is broken, they don’t fix it. On the other hand, MSPs take a proactive approach to managing their clients’ IT. They have the expertise to pinpoint and fix issues before they become a problem, resulting in greater reliability and fewer costly outages and downtime. Further, MSPs ensure all software is updated, thus enhancing the efficiency, productivity, and security of your system.
Ability To Focus on Your Core Business
Outsourcing your technology to an MSP allows your company to focus on your core business while leaving the technology to the IT experts. By providing cost predictability and robust IT services more efficiently than you could do on your own, MSPs allow you to invest more heavily in other areas of your business and to concentrate on doing what you do best.
Tabush Group is a leading provider of Managed IT and Cloud Services for small to midsize businesses. To learn more about how our state-of-the-art IT solutions can make your firm’s operations more efficient and secure, contact us.