Managed IT Services - A 60 second introduction

Small businesses without in-house technical expertise can often find managing their IT a challenge. To start off with, the task of IT management may fall to the person who knows most about computers, but as a company grows it becomes necessary to call in a specialist when problems arise. As the company grows past 5 – 10 employees however, a more structured approach to IT Management is called for to ensure that your data is properly managed. At much the same time it will probably become apparent that there has to be a better way of managing IT than waiting until something breaks before you fix it. It can take up to a day to re-load a PC from scratch due to the number of updates that need to be applied, and onsite engineering charges can easily start to mount up to a point whereby a single call-out can cost in excess of £500.

If you can't justify employing your own IT Manager, your best choice could well be to engage a managed IT Service provider, but although the approach has been around for some time now, and can deliver significant benefits for small businesses, many business owners don’t fully appreciate what is involved in handing over management of their systems to a Managed Services Provider (MSP), or what they get for their money and so they have shied away from it so far.

What does a managed service provider do?

A managed service provider can either run every aspect of IT Support for you, or can offload day-to-day administration tasks from your current IT manager, allowing them to concentrate on developing your IT to meet your business needs rather than performing routine maintenance tasks. It really depends on what suits you best. In general terms however, a Managed Service Provider provides you with all the benefits of a specialist IT department without having to pay out the associated full-time salaries, or worry about the HR hassles of managing your own IT team.

How can your IT be managed by a Managed Services Supplier (MSP)?

Remote Management software is installed on your PC's and servers and allows an MSP to monitor your IT systems and report back on potential problems such as low disk space, failed Windows updates, or out-of date security software so that preventative maintenance can be undertaken before a system fails. Many of these routine maintenance tasks can either be automated or undertaken remotely, minimising the cost of delivering support by cutting down on the need to send an engineer to your offices.

What happens when IT systems fail?

A managed services supplier should make provision to be able to recover your systems as swiftly as possible in the event of failure. To minimise system rebuild time, a spare PC should be kept in your offices together with a snapshot of your standard PC build. Onsite / offsite data backups are then take to ensure that systems can always be recovered in the event of a system failure, fire or flood.

What about system security?

Robust security is an essential component of best IT practices that MSP's use to make the job of managing your IT easier. By implementing best IT practices such as restricting who can add new programs to your PC's, and making sure that antivirus and Windows updates are installed, your MSP incurs less cost in managing your system which allows them to keep their service costs down.

Managed IT Services allow you to benefit from the same level of professional IT management as a FTSE 100 company without having to maintain your own full time IT team, or worry about your IT manager going off sick or taking a holiday. You can concentrate on growing your business knowing that your IT is being maintained as efficiently as possible. Please download our Managed Services White Paper or visit our web site if you would like to know more. Alternatively, please contact us on 01707 255060 or by email at info@clearview.co.uk. We will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.