<img src="https://secure.leadforensics.com/133892.png" alt="" style="display:none;">

The fast-paced nature of today’s business landscape has meant that it’s time to start thinking beyond break/fix IT and more towards how to adopt a proactive approach. But sadly, many in-house IT teams can’t keep up with trends and ensure their business systems are working as they should.

With this in mind, it can be a good idea to work with a managed services provider (MSP). Here are the top benefits they can bring to your business.

  1. Avoid downtime
  2. Gain access to experts…
  3. …including experts in cybersecurity
  4. Benefit from the latest technology
  5. Gain more time back for your team
  6. Receive a reliable, single point of contact
  7. More cost-efficient
  8. Receive 24/7 assistance
  9. Easy to scale up or down as required

1. Avoid downtime

Rather than being reactive, an MSP can help your business adopt a proactive approach when it comes to your critical systems. For example, great MSPs will monitor your systems round-the-clock and resolve issues before they become a problem. If a problem should happen, they would conduct root cause analysis (RCA) to prevent the same issue from happening again.

In other words, an MSP can help you maximise uptime and minimise downtime. And considering downtime can cost just under £4,000 a minute on average (or $5,600), it’s easy to understand why working with an MSP offers so much value.

2. Gain access to experts…

To stay ahead of the competition and ensure you’re continuously improving customer experience, you may need to invest in new pieces of technology. However, your existing internal teams may not be familiar with this new technology which can lead to issues such as:

  • Not using the software according to best practices
  • Struggling to gain team buy-in
  • Software not working as it should

Then there’s the issue of implementing this new technology. Such projects require a lot of resources (time, manpower, expertise etc) - can you confidently say you can spare all of these resources for an extended period of time?

Of course, you could hire more in-house specialists. But recruitment is expensive, time-consuming and there’s no guarantee you’ll find the right people at the right time.

This is where working with an MSP can help. MSPs have experts for every vertical, each with years of experience under their belt. So, they have the knowledge required to advise you on ways to improve business processes, rather than just fix your current ones.

For example, they may align companies with an industry best practice where and when it can be implemented. At Columbus, we even go as far as having hundreds of pre-mapped out business processes for a variety of industries in a BPM model for companies to evaluate and choose from.

3. …including experts in cybersecurity

Over recent years, organisations have truly started to understand the security risks they face and the importance of a watertight cybersecurity approach. Keeping up with this is a full-time job for a security expert - or team!

However, it’s often not feasible to employ a full-time employee just for this. Unfortunately, this also means you stand a higher chance of downtime, data breaches, malware and more.

Work with an MSP and their security experts will become an extension of your team. In addition, they’ll also have key software designed to anticipate and target breaches even before they occur.

4. Access to the latest technology

If your internal resources are stretched thin, fighting fires and working on BAU tasks, how can they focus on ensuring your business is as innovative as it can be? As well as saving your in-house teams time, great MSPs will be in tune with industry trends.

They will know about the latest technologies and can advise which software is worth investing in (and which part of your business it can help most) and which aren’t.

A great example over the last few years has been reporting and analytics. More and more companies are no longer just storing all their data but reporting off only small sections. A great MSP will not only tell you what data you should be reporting but also advise on the best technology to do so.

Check out the Managed Services brochure

5. Gain more time back for your team

What often happens in an organisation is that key staff are so focused on all the business as usual (BAU) tasks, they have little time to focus on strategy for the future. Take your IT team, for example. They may be spending disproportionate amounts of time firefighting issues - which means less time to spare for the projects that will truly drive your business forward.

Work with an MSP and that can take away the strenuous legwork. An MSP can manage your critical systems and maximise uptime, leaving you with more time to focus on staying ahead of the pace of innovation.

6. Receive a reliable, single point of contact

Your in-house teams are indeed more likely to know your business and industry nuances inside and out. But, great MSPs will always strive to totally familiarise themselves with your company, solutions, USPs and industry.

You should have a designated Service Delivery Manager who will be your single point of contact, the middleman between you and the vendors, able to efficiently intercept and resolve any issues on your behalf. If your customer success manager is unavailable for any reason (for example, they’re on annual leave or off sick), there will always be a secondary contact so you’ll always receive the support you require.

The right MSP will look beyond managed services and strive to become a trusted advisor to your business.

7. More cost-efficient

A clear, primary benefit of working with an MSP is that it’s often more cost-efficient than keeping it in-house. There are several reasons for this, including:

  • No need to recruit and train new staff to gain access to more expertise
  • Ability to manage your systems 24/7
  • More predictable costs - your service level agreement will outline what you pay for and the level of service you receive so you don’t need to worry about unexpected costs
  • You can move from a capital expense model to an operating expense model

8. Receive 24/7 assistance

Unless you already have staff in-house to monitor and manage your systems out-of-hours, how are you ensuring your business data and applications are monitored round-the-clock?

A global MSP like Columbus can be there 24/7, with a dedicated team of experts ready to look after your systems and resolve issues, regardless of the hour.

9. Easy to scale up or down as required

As your business and industry evolve, your technology will likely need to follow. While modern systems such as the Dynamics 365 stack are designed to be scalable and easy to add on or remove applications, you may still require advice/assistance.

An MSP can help you with this, providing advice to ensure you’re making the best decision for your current business needs.

Additionally, it’s easy to scale skills and resources up or down as required. For example, if you’re in the midst of an ERP implementation project and need more hands involved, you can lean on your MSP. Just amend your service level agreement; there’s no need to go through the recruitment process!

What can Columbus bring to your business?

Were you nodding along as you skim read this blog post? As you can see, there are so many benefits to working with an MSP. At Columbus, we can manage your critical applications and maximise uptime so you can focus on the tasks that truly drive your business forward.

To learn more about the value we can bring to your business as a managed services provider, click the button below to read our brochure.

Managed Services Partner

Discuss this post

Recommended posts

Adoption of cloud solutions is spreading far and wide. Many businesses have turned to cloud ERP systems to reduce human capital costs, others to increase efficiency and flexibility – all valuable benefits amid ongoing disruption. However, continuous cloud updates are not a ‘fix-all’ solution to ensure ongoing operations. Thorough release management of updates and implementation of sound testing strategy must be used to ensure consistent operational functionality and security.
At Columbus, we believe that with the right partner, IT outsourcing can shift your business from going with the flow to driving it. It can actually put you in the right position to be proactive, especially in the face of change. We all need this right now.
Remember Facebook's data breach that impacted 533 million users and cost Meta €1.2bn in fines? But Facebook is not alone. Brands like Yahoo, Ali Baba, LinkedIn, and Twitter have all suffered data breaches and cybersecurity attacks. That's why ensuring online safety should be every business's top priority, and a cybersecurity audit is a great way to do that. So read on and learn how to perform a cybersecurity audit for your business in six practical steps (the easy way).
From scheduling production and monitoring real-time performance to reviewing costs and margins – these are just some of the everyday challenges facing meat manufacturers. Technology solutions like food ERP software are vital to operational success, but just as consumer demands change, so does technology.
Implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) can revolutionise and provide immeasurable benefits to any business. However, it also takes a lot of time, planning and resource to be successful. Therefore, once it’s up and running, it’s important to make sure you’re getting the most out of it and maximising your investment. So, what needs to be done and how can you do it?
right-arrow share search phone phone-filled menu filter envelope envelope-filled close checkmark caret-down arrow-up arrow-right arrow-left arrow-down