IT consulting practices generally work under one of two models; Managed Service Providers (MSP) and traditional “break fix”.
When businesses are selecting an IT partner for their needs, they should consider several factors between choosing one over the other. The major difference between an MSP and a traditional IT company is in the level of proactiveness. An MSP is nimble enough to ensure your business’ IT infrastructure is proactive. In other words, MSP’s drive their margin by investing in your infrastructure so that there are few/no major issues.
The traditional, bulky IT company will wait for an event like an IT outage to happen and then fix the problem. If a business works with this IT provider instead of a MSP, it will be a continuous cycle of “break and fix” for IT processes in the business. The proactiveness provided by MSPs comes with several benefits. Some of them include:
Short-term savings: One of the most immediate impacts of choosing an MSP as an IT provider is the short-term savings provided by proactiveness. The business might only see a particular IT problem regularly, but the MSP can identify and fix the root cause of lingering tech-related issues. This can result in immediate savings that can be used to improve other efforts in the business.
Prevention of outages: Additionally, proactiveness is the best defense against IT outages that can halt your business’ operations. For small to medium sized businesses, an IT outage can cost up to $5,600 per minute. Many businesses cannot afford a loss that significant, especially over the course of a few days to a week. Several factors calculate this large loss due to an outage; this includes payroll, loss of revenue during the outage, the cost of fixing the outage and more. In contrast to a traditional IT partner, an MSP can address outages almost immediately instead of waiting days to solve the underlying cause.
Planning for growth: An MSP is a great IT partner for startups and businesses looking to grow over the next few years. When working with a traditional “break fix” IT company, if a business is growing, the IT provider waits until there’s a problem to address. In contrast, an MSP is proactive and helps create the IT infrastructure that can accommodate for more growth in revenue, employees and other aspects of a business. An MSP provider can create a roadmap so your business can address any technological gaps where your current systems fall short and replace them with better systems that accommodate for your operations.
Other benefits of proactiveness include:
- Cost-effectiveness
- Tactical advantage over competitors
- Corporate guidance
If you’d like to learn more about how a MSP can help your business be more proactive, talk to an expert here.
