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An increasing number of both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations are enlisting IT managed services, and it’s not hard to understand why. Today’s business landscape is becoming more reliant on information technology (IT). Many organizations realize that they can optimize operational costs while outpacing the competition, particularly if they have a fully equipped and professionally managed IT department.

Indeed, enlisting managed IT services coup open up opportunities to improve overall efficiency within your organization. This is because your in-house staff can leave the IT work to professionals and concentrate on other aspects that could place your business on a growth trajectory. IT has become a common trend for any enterprise undergoing digital transformation, whereby on-site IT hardware gets updated or replaced with efficient digital systems.

IT managed services

The term IT managed services refers to outsourcing IT-related responsibilities to a trusted third party. Some of these responsibilities include network monitoring and security, systems administration, cloud storage, infrastructure management, server maintenance, authentication, data backup, and disaster recovery. The demand for these services has grown exponentially in the past half a decade, with experts projecting that the global managed services market to hit $356.24 billion by 2025.

This growing demand is attributed to SMEs that require access to advanced technology to maintain a competitive edge in the markets and sustain continued growth but lack the IT budget required to meet those objectives. Fortunately, IT managed services allows SMEs to efficiently play at the same level as enterprise-level organizations with fully-equipped and up-to-date IT department.

How your business can benefit from IT managed services

Around the globe, an increasing number of organizations are partnering with IT managed service providers to support their increasing IT infrastructure needs. So, how will your business benefit from such a partnership?

1. Freed-up resources

Business managers or owners and internal IT staff would rather focus on various income-generating tasks such as the creation of cutting-edge services or product development. This is one of the reasons regular monitoring and maintenance responsibilities are often ignored by the IT team, which could derail the entire department’s operations.

Fortunately, IT managed service providers can relieve your internal IT staff of mundane network operations maintenance, routine monitoring of storage infrastructure, server maintenance, help desk duties, and other day-to-day operations. This can free up human resources and renew emphasis on core business activities.

2. A true partner in sharing IT responsibilities and risks

The primary goal of a managed service provider is to deliver on contracted IT services, analyze, measure, optimize, and report IT service operations. Indeed, such a partner is an irreplaceable catalyst for organizational growth. They not only assume leadership roles in the IT depart, but they also minimize risks, improve efficiency, and introduce streamlined internal IT operations that could spur positive organizational culture and growth.

3. Access to cutting-edge technologies, expertise, and best practices

Managing everything can be a challenging scenario for an internal IT team, and this is where external technical support (from managed service provider) comes in. The right technical support provider can undertake the IT burden while strengthening your organization’s technological capabilities by keeping your IT department updated to the latest tech, security patches, and routine monitoring & maintenance to reduce or eliminate downtimes. Indeed, gaining access to newer and more efficient technologies can keep you ahead of the competition.

In our experience, new and advanced technologies could mean new problems, particularly if your existing IT staff lacks the experience or knowledge to handle advanced technological systems. There is also the issue of IT infrastructure monitoring and maintenance. Regardless of where your core systems are (on premise or cloud), you still need resources to support the entire department. This poses additional stress on your IT department.

Sure, you can address these two issues by recruiting highly experienced talents, but the cost of hiring and training IT professionals can be astronomical. One of the top benefits of IT managed services is that these services grant you access to the latest technology and expertise at an affordable cost. Some managed services providers take a shared approach, meaning you can add or eliminate specialists from the managed services team depending on the overall demand of every project.

4. Scalability

As your organization’s technology needs evolve over time, you will need your IT system either upward or downward to address them. The good news is that systems like cloud tech and various software are highly scalable by design. However, you will still need an expert’s assistance. Your managed service provider can help you respond to variations in demand in real-time. So, you no longer need to worry about downtime.

To achieve seamless scalability, you must choose a managed service provider with many consultants (and acquire more as needed). The company should also provide advanced services, including upgraded service release management, proactive monitoring, reporting, and other IT services to allow you to get the highest level of scalability and most significant value out of the partnership.

5. Security & data protection

If you work with clients or other organization’s data, it is essential that they can trust you. It would be best if you had secure IT infrastructure in place, and they won’t have a problem doing business with your organization. With reliable IT managed services, you can rest assured that your data is protected.

Additionally, data-related regulations and compliance are constantly changing, making it challenging to keep up with the latest data policy amendments. Having a managed service provider address your company’s IT related systems and data van ensures you stay compliant with the relevant regulations.

It’s up to you

IT managed services offer your organization the opportunity to improve productivity, security and achieve a higher level of scalability. ANP has been a trusted partner in the provision of managed firewall, network security, server management, malware removal, wireless network, and other IT-related services. If you want to leverage the latest technologies and get the most out of your IT investments, contact us.