Tag Archives: HelpDesk

The Benefits an IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) Could Bring to Your Business

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Woman with beautiful smile holding a tablet and managed services concept in transparent bubble

Is it time to make a change?

No matter what industry your company works in, having an experienced team of IT technicians at your disposal is crucial in helping to ensure your team’s efficiency as well as in ensuring your company’s digital security. However, if you still have not outsourced these service, then you may be discovering that it is becoming costly, time-consuming, and stressful to maintain an in-house IT department. Thusly, if you have not considered doing so already, you should take a moment to seriously consider turning over your business’s IT needs to a managed service provider.

What is a Managed Service Provider?

At this point, you may be asking yourself what a managed service provider is, and how they could benefit your company. A managed service provider (or MSP) is a third party company that provides all or part of a company’s IT needs either on or off-site. An MSP is essentially a company that specializes in providing businesses with IT services, allowing them to free up resources within their company by outsourcing their IT department. Outsourcing IT to a managed service provider is growing increasingly popular amongst businesses due to the benefits they can provide. Here are just a few of the reasons you should consider transferring your company’s IT needs to an MSP.

Cut and Control IT Costs

As you have likely begun to discover for yourself, maintaining an in-house IT department can be extremely expensive. In fact, ballooning costs and costs that can fluctuate greatly from one month to the next are amongst the most common reasons why companies choose to outsource IT. By outsourcing your IT needs to an MSP you can control costs and help to make your monthly IT costs more predictable, as MSPs often charge a flat rate fee for their services. Additionally, outsourcing IT can save you money as you will not have to invest in hardware, software, or on hiring and training IT personnel. These costs will be spread out amongst the MSP’s clients helping to make IT costs more affordable for all parties involved.

Access to Highly Skilled Technicians

In order to ensure your company’s efficiency and security, it is critical that you have access to skilled IT technicians who are experienced in their field. However, many small to medium-sized businesses find it difficult and time-consuming to hire IT professionals. Alternatively, by partnering with a reputable MSP you will have access to a team of highly qualified and experienced personnel without having to do any of the headhunting yourself. MSP’s have the resources and experience to find the best people in the IT field who will be able to provide you with the highest quality of services.

Gain Access to the Latest Technology

For many smaller organizations, it is difficult to maintain their current IT department, meaning that they often are unable to keep up with the latest innovations in IT. However, as IT is their sole focus, MSPs work diligently to research and implement the latest IT technology, and they have the time and resources to train their staff on the latest techniques. By partnering with an MSP you stand to benefit from the latest technology without any of the risks and costs that can come from implementing this technology yourself.

Flexible and Scalable Services

When working with an MSP it is much easier to scale your services based on your current needs. This can be particularly beneficial for growing businesses, as you will not have to constantly work to expand your IT department to meet your growing needs. As the needs of your company evolve, your MSP will provide you with the flexibility to scale your services as needed without any headaches or hassle.

Outsourcing your IT needs to a managed service provider can provide your company with a variety of benefits. Contact us to learn more about these benefits as well as to learn about the services that we provide.

How Can Managed Service Provider (MSP) Help Your SMB?

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Corporate Manager Pushing MANAGED SERVICES

Do you have a team of engineers to tackle your next problem?

Many small businesses and medium-sized businesses have to make the decision to seek help from local specialists and experts to help them solve various problems on an impromptu basis. The lack of clarity with the “fix it when it breaks” model can be very damaging to a promising business. Furthermore, this type of model does not provide the necessary functions an up-and-coming business will need, including the following:

  • disaster recovery
  • IT management
  • network security
  • applications management

If your small business is currently operating under a model that lacks the necessary expertise and key functions, this will likely mean you are falling behind due to the push towards mobility, the use of cloud applications, and operating in a complex business industry.

Where Can Managed Services Help Your Business?

A Managed Service Provider will have the necessary tools and experience to solve any issues you may be having, and any issues that may arise in the future. A Managed Service Provider(MSP) will take care of the main responsibilities of your business and allow your employees to focus on other key business operations.

A Managed IT Service provider will also allow a small business or medium-sized business to perform better even with fewer resources. A Managed Service Provider(MSP) will regularly evaluate your business’s IT infrastructure and the current network. The MSP will also perform repair and maintenance activities remotely, and this will include upgrades and updates.

Not only will the right Managed Service Provider(MSP) partner provide you with the proper protection if something breaks or fails. With the assistance of the right MSP partner and expanded availability, your small or medium-sized business will less likely experience any interruptions or downtime. Your SMB can also avoid employing more in-house IT workers as your business grows because the right MSP will provide you with the workforce your growing business will need.

You may need managed service to manage some of your basic technical needs or you may want to outsource the entirety of your business technology and IT infrastructure. The majority of MSPs will have a pay-as-you-go plan, and this means you will be able to get the services you need without breaking the bank. You can choose a plan that will align with your business needs and requirements.

Productivity Increase

When you partner with a Managed Service Provider, you can expect your business processes and systems to be simplified. A managed service provider will take on issues that come to light because of technology. How can a Managed Service Provider(MSP) take on these issues? An MSP will be able to successfully fight these issues through the use of monitoring and experience. Even before issues come to light, an MSP will be able to uncover the problems, carefully plan for them, and prevent them from becoming worse through all the elements of a managed service plan.

Reduce Downtime

An MSP is able to do more than uncover issues and track them; it can also predict how big of a threat each event may be. When an MSP is able to predict how dangerous an event may be, this will allow them to use a strategy that will prevent it from occurring in the first place. This means your SMB will be able to continue running with no interruptions.

Someone On Your Side 24/7

How much would you like having instant access to IT professionals and experts on a 24/7 basis? An MSP will not only give your business access to IT professionals, but your business will also have access to the following:

  • virus protection
  • firewall protection
  • infrastructure management
  • internet monitoring
  • disaster recovery

An MSP will have everything you need when it comes to monitoring and managing your IT needs. An MSP will also address any problems you are having, keep your business data safe, and ensure your business operation is functioning as it should be.

Are you ready to have an IT plan that will be a perfect fit for your business? Please do not hesitate to contact us today for more information on Managed Service Providers(MSPs).

IT Monthly Management Reporting: Incident Tracking

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IT meting over monthly management reports - IT help desk

Communication on a help desk is key to providing quality service

Consistent and organized IT monthly management reports will give your organization or your business will help keep all of your strategies on track. We understand it may take some time, energy, and patience to get past some of the common management reporting issues that other businesses and organizations have faced. Once you have moved past the common issues, you will be able to improve your entire process and the monthly management reporting will be worth it.

Your IT monthly management reporting software will only be as good as the vendor or provider who will offer it. One of the questions that many people have about monthly management reports is what are the features of a well-built monthly management reporting system. You may already have a sound report format or you may just want to be sure that you have covered everything, we hope we can help provide you with the information you need.

Your IT help desk or service desk solution may already come with a set of reports, but sometimes these reports are not the most essential metrics for your team to track. You should focus on the metrics that will help you achieve the most critical aspects and objectives of your business.

Response Time

Incident response time is the number of hours, minutes, or days that have passed when the issue was reported and a resolution was actually found. A fast response time with moderate reopen rates will specify effective customer service.

Resolution Rate

The resolution rate consists of the percentage of problems that were resolved the first time they were brought up. First-time resolution rate will not consist of any repeated calls. When your organization has a high first-time resolution rate, this will generally correlate to outstanding customer service and outstanding customer satisfaction.

Where Are The Highest Incidents?

You will have an opportunity to determine what business departments have the highest need for products and services. Reviewing incidents per department will give you the best chance to identify any holes in your service and provide as an aid in assigning agents correctly.

Current Tickets

Another thing that you should be reported is the number of tickets that are currently active. When you are aware of the number of current tickets you have, you will not be caught off-guard and you will not be overwhelmed by the tickets. Keeping track of the active tickets will also prevent you from having unsatisfied customers because you will not let your tickets get backed up.

Revisiting Tickets

Do you keep track of the percentage of tickets that have to be reopened after the initial contact? If a ticket needs to be reopened after it was marked as resolved may provide you with the insight you need to improve your training. This can also result in a need to perform maintenance and/or repairs on your hardware.

No Resolution

If you have incidents that did not receive a resolution can mean that you have holes and gaps that need to be filled when it comes to your agents. There can also be holes and gaps when it comes to knowing how to properly manage the system.

When you are able to keep track of the number of tickets, incidents, and resolutions, you will be able to do the following:

  • identify tendencies
  • identify what areas have the highest ticket volume and the lowest ticket volume
  • schedule agents appropriately during the high-volume times

You want to ensure your end users and customers are happy and satisfied at the end of the day, and proper IT monthly management reports can provide you with the assistance you need to ensure this does happen. Contact us today for more information on IT management reporting.

How to Take Care of IT Tasks That Can’t Be Individually Managed

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IT business support Managed IT services concept

Business processes change rapidly are you staffed to handle these changes?

A lot of small businesses are using third-party services. Sometimes automated tools replace a lot of administrative tasks, which mean the employees can focus on sales or human-powered creative tasks. SaaS can even replace invoicing management, basic cybersecurity, and financial projections. But for the remaining tasks that need to be handled by people, it’s important to decide if your business benefits more from dedicated employees or a hired service. Here are two logistical reasons to hire out:

There are no legacy problems.

Even though the trend of staying with the same company for one’s whole career is fading away, most employees assume they’re going to be with the company for several years. While that can be a good thing because they’re not just running out the clock or making short-term decisions, it can cause a few problems in the IT department.

If your company is employee-based, people will make custom tweaks and idiosyncratic fixes because they think they’ll be around to explain them or fix what goes wrong. That means you can be left with a jumble of unsolvable problems when the employee leaves or you have to scale the network. But if your company uses a third-party service, everything is transparent and standardized with no hidden surprises if you ever change services or transform your infrastructure.

You can forecast expenses.

Managed IT services are very different from traditional IT support. Instead of paying to bring a technician in and solve immediate problems, a managed service is paid monthly to prevent problems in the first place. Not only does that help reduce downtime costs and cybersecurity risks, it’s a predictable expense. The better you can accurately forecast your annual budget, the more comfortably you can take risks into new markets.

You can take advantage of standardized IT procedures.

Small businesses involve a lot of self-management. If you’re self-employed on a team of one, you have to manage your own time, expenses, and output. With a small group, you can turn to each other for support and time management. But there are some tasks that can’t be left entirely manual, especially as your business grows. Make sure you have a managed IT service that can:

1. Automate malware and cybersecurity software updates.

Every week there’s another patch. Operating systems need to reboot to install updates. Your anti-virus program has a frequent pop-up asking you to update to the latest version. It can seem like a headache or an attempt to upsell you. But when it comes to computer and network security, keeping up with the latest versions of your programs is essential. Give the task to your IT service, which can ensure that all of your company’s devices are updated regularly. Individual employees might just delay updates or have the pop-ups turned off. Automating the system not only guarantees the best adherence to security, it can be scheduled for common downtimes.

2. Manage business technology during employee turnover.

If someone quits the employee or they’re let go, a lot of information can go with them. A lot of assets can, too. Look for a managed service that can remotely track down business technology so you can retrieve it as needed. You can also set up a system to remotely wipe or disconnect technology so you don’t have to worry about data leaks and potentially malicious users after the fact.

3. Solve problems before they’re problems.

Most outages don’t strike without a warning. The warnings are just rarely seen. But a managed IT service usually starts a contract by installing software that lets them remotely monitor your network for system slowdowns, peak use times on the network, and suspicious CPU draws. They can track down the warnings signs and strengthen your security or suggest network growth before disaster strikes.

Go to SystemsNet to find out more about what IT support services can do for your business.