We do a lot of networking and public events here at Datasense and one question that comes up over and over again is the about the benefits of manages IT services. It’s totally understandable that people have this question. After all, when your IT is running smoothly, it’s a bit of an out of sight, out of mind, situation. The problem is that running smoothly isn’t always what it seems and when things go wrong, it can be devastating. So, here are just a few of the benefits of managed IT.
Is managed IT worth it?
If you want a rather blunt answer to the above question, you would probably be best to speak to either a business who has had access to managed IT when they needed it, or one that hasn’t been hit hard. In fact, I would advise anyone who has doubts about whether they need managed IT to do just that. For the moment though, these are a few of the most common advantages of letting us look after your IT for you.
- Cyber security is vital to business. When a specialist is looking after your security you have the comfort of knowing that your anti-virus and other protections are up to date. I don’t want to worry you… Actually, no, I do want to worry you because this is important. If you are vulnerable to a cyber attack, it could be more when it will happen than if it will happen. According to the National Cyber Security Centre, 31% of Business and 26% of charities are attacked at least once a week. SMEs are the target of a successful attack every 19 seconds. The consequences of an attack are costly and inconvenient at best and at worst they could have serious financial and operational repercussions for your business. Managed IT doesn’t guarantee that you will be immune to an attack, nothing does, but it does reduce the chances of a successful one and you will be more resilient should one occur.
- It’s cost effective to have your IT managed remotely. The secure and resilient system we talked about in the last point, is a good place to start. The estimated cost of a security breach is over £3,000 for a small SME. Then add the loss of trading time (which could be days), the potential need to replace equipment and software, cost of the administration of informing the ICO and your customers of a breach, not to mention the damage to your reputation, and it amounts to a loss of £1000s that could have been prevented.
Putting aside the cost of a breach though, in-house IT management is often more of a hit on the bottom line than outsourcing. Usually, it means training a staff member and then repeat training to keep them up to speed with current developments. Then you have lost a valuable team member to additional duties which means you now need to cover part of their original role.
The other option is to hire a specialist IT person, which is usually not financially viable until you have a business with infrastructure to support the need for a full time IT department.
- IT needs constant monitoring, updating, and checking. For most SMEs that is simply time and knowledge they don’t have. Even if you invest in training someone to act as your IT manager, as we said in the last point, unless they are full time responsible for maintenance, they simply won’t be able to offer the level of service you require because of time pressure.
- Managed IT services will scale with you as you grow. As long as you keep us in the loop with developments in your business, we can make sure everyone on the team has the right access levels, the right equipment, and that your IT infrastructure and systems keep pace with your growth.
- Managed IT means you have access to experts when you need them, which leaves you to do what you do best and run your business. There is simply no replacement for the decades of know how you will have to hand with managed IT. When you need advice or guidance, a trusted managed IT partner will be there to help. That will save you time and mean you get the right answers.
- Cyber security is vital to business. When a specialist is looking after your security you have the comfort of knowing that your anti-virus and other protections are up to date. I don’t want to worry you… Actually, no, I do want to worry you because this is important. If you are vulnerable to a cyber attack, it could be more when it will happen than if it will happen. According to the National Cyber Security Centre, 31% of Business and 26% of charities are attacked at least once a week. SMEs are the target of a successful attack every 19 seconds. The consequences of an attack are costly and inconvenient at best and at worst they could have serious financial and operational repercussions for your business. Managed IT doesn’t guarantee that you will be immune to an attack, nothing does, but it does reduce the chances of a successful one and you will be more resilient should one occur.
For most businesses in the UK, managed IT is lower in cost, more effective, more up to date and means you are less vulnerable. So, you can run the risk of down time and outages of service, or you can have the help you need when you need it and the peace of mind that your IT is monitored, proactively managed and up to date. Not to mention you will also have the resilience to recover quickly and be back in business if something does go wrong.
As I mentioned earlier, we suggest you ask around. Speak to businesses who have had an IT problem or, just as importantly, no problems, about the value of managed IT services. Then call us and let’s chat about how we can help.
