Dinosaurs are cool and all. But nature took them out for a reason: they didn’t evolve. Much in the same way, businesses that don’t keep up with changing tech quickly turn into fossils. Cloud computing, data analytics, cybersecurity, mobile apps- these are constantly changing and improving. Don’t stay trendy with the tech, and you will stop growing. This is why you need IT support services.
Staffing an in-house IT department is extremely expensive. There are multiple steps involved:
- Hiring and keeping skilled tech employees
- Buying and maintaining hardware and software
- Ensuring you follow constantly updated regulations
These are no cakewalk, especially for small and medium businesses. It all costs a ton of money that quickly drains resources.
This is where managed service providers in Chicago can help. By outsourcing the IT tasks to them, businesses can utilize cutting-edge technologies while minimizing expenses. This frees up internal staff to focus on the core operations that truly drive the business.
What Are IT Support Services?
Simply put, this means hiring an outside company (Managed Service Providers or MSPs) to handle the IT functions of your business. This can be:
- basic tech support and maintenance
- complete management of your IT infrastructure.
Managed Service Providers in Chicago comprise highly skilled IT professionals specializing in all areas of technology across industries.
When you outsource IT support services, you essentially rent their staff and resources instead of having to hire and equip an in-house team. You get access to enterprise-level IT capabilities without having to spend too much.
The Hidden Costs of Doing It Alone
Handling all technology needs entirely in-house is not just difficult. It can also quickly become highly expensive.
Without the expertise and resources of an experienced Managed Service Provider in Chicago, companies can face:
- excessive downtimes
- missing security vulnerabilities
- compliance issues
- inefficient system performance
- inability to properly leverage modern cloud/IT capabilities.
The lost productivity and revenue opportunities are greater than the costs of partnering with an MSP.
Additionally, businesses bear the full burden of attracting and retaining top IT talent in an increasingly competitive job market. The costs of training existing staff on emerging technologies continues rising annually. Not properly investing in IT inevitably leads to technical debt that hinders operations and stifles growth opportunities down the road. MSPs allow avoiding most of these unnecessary costs by providing affordable access to a deep pool of IT skills and knowledge.
How Managed IT Saves Money
There are many ways in which outsourced IT support services can help.
1. Lower Labor Costs
The biggest way managed IT cuts costs is reducing labor expenses. Hiring, training, and keeping talented IT staff is extremely expensive with salaries, benefits, taxes, etc. By outsourcing to an MSP, you avoid all of those overhead costs associated with internal IT employees. The MSP already has a team in place for you to leverage.
2. Predictable Billing
MSPs typically use a subscription-based pricing model, so you pay a flat recurring fee. This makes budgeting for IT costs easy since you know the exact number each month. You avoid any surprise huge upfront costs for new hardware, software, or other investments.
3. Only Pay for What You Need
MSP pricing is also scalable based on the specific services you require. As your business needs change, you can easily scale IT resources up or down as needed. This prevents you from overpaying for more than you need.
4. No Maintenance Costs
All of the costs of maintaining and upgrading an IT infrastructure fall on the MSP rather than your internal team. MSPs make those investments to ensure you always have modern and optimized tech solutions.
5. Increased Efficiency
When you have expert outsourced IT support services proactively monitoring your systems, your staff can focus on growing the business instead of putting out tech fires. You will be able to properly align responsibilities.
6. Access to Expertise
MSPs employ professionals with certifications and specialties across all areas of IT. As a client, you get access to that brain trust of knowledge and experience without having to hire and train a huge internal team.
Not Ready to Fully Outsource? Consider a Hybrid Approach
You might not be comfortable handing over your business’s IT operations to outsourced IT support services right away. If you have existing in-house IT staff and aren’t prepared to make the full transition to an outsourced managed service, there is a middle ground option called a hybrid or co-managed IT model.
With a hybrid approach, you essentially keep an internal IT team or department to handle core responsibilities and daily user support. However, you supplement that internal team by bringing in an outside managed service provider (MSP) for additional support, expertise, and resources as needed.
The MSP could be tasked with more advanced projects like cloud migrations, cybersecurity oversight, systems monitoring, data backup/recovery, strategic tech planning and more. Meanwhile, your in-house staff continues their roles of handling help desk tickets, PC deployments, printer setups and other housekeeping IT tasks they are accustomed to.
This hybrid model provides a way to ease into a partnership with Managed Service Provider in Chicago without totally replacing your internal capabilities. You get to take advantage of an MSP’s enhanced services, specialty skills, and scalable resources. But you also maintain direct control over part of your IT through employees embedded within your organization.
From a cost perspective, hybrid IT allows you to minimize adding full-time head count while benefiting from the MSP’s economy of scale. You only pay for the a la carte managed services you choose to leverage from the provider. This can lead to significant savings compared to an entirely internal IT structure.
As your comfort level grows or as your technical needs expand, you can evolve the hybrid model and choose to offload more IT functions to the MSP over time. The scalable nature of managed services make this an extremely flexible approach to align costs with your business requirements.
To Wrap It UP
The modern business landscape demands technological adaptability. Managed IT support services from MSPs like DP Tech provide a cost-effective way for companies to tap into skilled IT resources while cutting down on costs.
