Cybersecurity has become a threat for most small and medium-sized businesses. Today, a small business is attacked by ransomware every 11 seconds, which indicates that cyberattacks are imminent threats to most companies.
Unfortunately, these companies cannot afford expensive security servers, related cybersecurity equipment, and highly-skilled experts to deal with such threats as they happen. Maintaining an in-house IT department that can repeal threats is practically and financially impossible.
Without any feasible solution and cyberattacks becoming a daily occurrence, small companies have no solution but to consider managed IT solutions.
What Are Managed IT Solutions?
Managed IT solutions allow small and medium-sized businesses to outsource IT functions from a reputable and highly competent third-party vendor. A company will delegate all IT duties to a highly skilled and equipped IT provider to address the weaknesses shown by the in-house IT department.
Depending on the managed service provider (MSP), small companies can outsource most functions such as data storage, cloud services, email hosting, CRM applications, network monitoring, and data backup.
Outsourcing managed IT services allows smaller businesses to apply their limited resources accurately by focusing on core competencies and organizational goals without worrying about complex IT functions.
How Can Your Small Business Benefit from Managed IT Services?
As a small business owner, you already know that in-house IT systems cannot scale your organization to the next level. Besides, such systems require heavy investments to protect your organization from the increased cyber threats that face your company today. However, your business will access the following benefits by outsourcing IT solutions.
1. Cost Savings
Often, small companies don’t have a fully staffed IT department complete with all the latest tools. In most cases, regular employees have to take care of IT issues as they turn up. An unqualified person working in the IT department only leads to delays or compounds the problem.
Data corruption, security breaches, and business downtimes are usually rampant. So instead of saving the much-needed money, they spend even more trying to keep their systems operating.
However, with the support of a managed service provider (MSP), small companies don’t have to invest in any equipment. Instead, these companies will access IT experts, modern IT tools, and fewer downtimes at a proportional monthly cost.
Working with specialist IT teams can save a company around 40% of its IT costs while enabling employees to concentrate on utilizing their skills in areas such as customer service, sales, and business marketing.
2. Access to High-end Cybersecurity
Contrary to the current opinion, small businesses have become primary targets for cybercriminals. They don’t have sophisticated security systems, making it easier for hackers to access sensitive business documents or install malware into their systems.
The current statistics note that more than 43% of the cyberattacks in the country today are targeting vulnerable small organizations. But unfortunately, three out of four small entities don’t have sound IT security capable of dealing with such threats.
That’s why managed IT solutions have become the only option for these companies to protect their operations against cybercriminals. Noteworthy, these organizations are currently accessing robust and cost-effective cybersecurity.
To provide high-end cybersecurity services, managed service providers have what it takes, including high-skilled and experienced IT experts. They also offer proactive security techniques by training business staff in unique strategies to deal with phishing, malware, and other social engineering tricks.
3. Flexibility and Scalability
Small companies are growing quickly. They want to serve many customers, reach out to different geographical locations and compete with established organizations. However, this growth must be supported by sufficient resources.
As highlighted earlier, the lack of financial resources has made it challenging for these organizations to have a proactive IT department that can support the growing needs of the business. That’s why the majority of the small and medium-sized organizations have outgrown their in-house IT systems.
Fortunately, managed IT services have been made to address the growing needs of smaller companies. These service providers have unlimited IT equipment, tools, and experts, which makes them fit into any size business.
Therefore, small companies have multiple data backups available around the clock, which means they have the flexibility and scalability to maintain their growth. Additionally, with unmatched IT capability, smaller organizations have an opportunity to grow without having to second-guess the security of their files.
4. Custom IT Solutions
Importantly, managed service providers are not interested in providing generic IT services. Instead, they take a keen look into the services of a company to understand all business processes and goals.
Moving forward, these companies can provide custom IT solutions to meet the organization’s unique needs. Customization of IT solutions has proved to be the next frontier in enabling companies to enhance their operations and deal with extreme industrial competition.
Today, the majority of the companies outsourcing IT services match the competitive abilities of the larger organizations. As a result, they can quickly scale their IT solutions depending on the competitive needs and customer demands.
5. Reduced Business Downtimes
Business downtimes have become a common challenge in the majority of organizations. Besides the technical downtimes usually caused by cyberattacks and other technical issues, organizations also deal with extreme environmental aspects that cause business downtimes.
In the last few years, various businesses in the United States have faced severe business downtimes caused by extreme weather conditions and natural phenomena such as hurricanes, heavy winds, flooding, and power outages.
As stated earlier, these businesses can’t push through unnecessary downtimes in a matter of days. Some smaller companies might take more than two weeks to restart their operations without external support.
Managed service providers have what it takes to restore a company’s operations from extreme environmental downtimes in hours. They provide around-the-clock monitoring while storing massive organizational data backup, which can help such organizations be back in operations immediately.
What’s Next for Small Businesses?
It’s now apparent that small and medium-sized businesses face severe cyberattacks that can potentially cripple a company. Unfortunately, in-house technologies are not sufficient to deal with such threats. With the benefits highlighted above, there’s no doubt that such companies have no other option but to incorporate managed service providers (MSP) in their operations.
