It’s always an exciting time when you commit to a new IT project that promises to change your organization for the better. Of course, the exciting stuff is what comes after the implementation process—a process that can range from easy-as-pie to incredibly complex and stressful, depending on the expertise your organization employs.

Technology has ingrained itself into just about every facet of modern life, particularly in the business world where every competitive edge makes a difference. Many small and medium-sized businesses simply don’t have the staff on-hand to manage and maintain their technology solutions, instead opting to outsource this important responsibility to managed service providers (MSPs).

SMBs need to be able to navigate the complexities of IT, whether it’s with a completely outsourced IT department or an in-house team of technicians. However, if you are thinking of technology management in this black-and-white way, you are eliminating the potential for enormous benefit through the use of co-managed IT.

Businesses will often go into the process of self-improvement with unrealistic expectations for how much they can significantly improve their functionality. This simply is not true, and sometimes business owners need to realize that real change—the kind that yields real results—takes time. Thankfully, there are some actionable steps you can take to ensure that your business is moving in the right direction.

A company's IT strategy plays a pivotal role in shaping its entire operational approach. This underscores the critical importance of meticulously crafting your organization's IT strategy. Beyond merely aligning your IT resources and support with your business objectives, a tailored IT strategy empowers you to adapt to the specific conditions in which you operate and devise practical solutions to your unique business challenges. But the advantages don't end there; let's outline several compelling reasons why businesses should consider customizing their IT strategy to harmonize with their core business initiatives.

Many businesses, irrespective of their size, are increasingly turning towards managed services to streamline their operations, reduce expenses, and elevate their overall customer value proposition. The utilization of managed services has revolutionized the landscape, not just in terms of cost-saving, but also in facilitating businesses to grow and extract greater value from their IT infrastructure. Let's take a look into how managed services achieve this dual objective.

Technology is important for many reasons, chief among them your business’ continued efficiency and productivity. The problem with technology, though, is that it will never last forever, and you’ll have to replace it sooner or later. Thankfully, you can delay those costs considerably by implementing a proactive technology management plan, effectively keeping the same technology running longer.

Businesses use all types of sayings to try to draw in customers. One of the core selling points of managed IT services is that “it pays for itself”. This is more than just marketing. The multiple services that make up managed IT services all help a business save time and money, but when added together, it can really help the bottom line of a business more than most services they can use. In this week’s blog we thought we would go through the core elements of a managed IT services agreement to show how it really does pay for itself. 

How does your business manage its IT? Do you have an in-house team, and how busy are they with all of the hustle and bustle of their everyday duties? Do they have time to address the many challenges and requests made of them? If not, then perhaps you should consider a different model for your IT management. Luckily, we have just the opportunity for you, and you won’t want to miss out on it.

When you buy into any idea, you need to ask yourself, “how much money am I willing to spend?” The same goes for your business’ IT. Of course, your business isn’t a public television telethon, but today, we’re going to pretend it is by going through the levels of investment you can make and how it can impact your business. 

There are countless moving parts to any successful business, and smaller companies often have the issue of their employees juggling multiple different tasks and wearing all kinds of different hats in addition to their outlined job duties and responsibilities. You might encounter situations where you don’t know what to do, and it can be overwhelming when so much needs to get done in so little time.

How has your business managed its technology in recent years? Depending on the way you have done so, you could be unnecessarily throwing money down the drain when you could instead be reinvesting it into your organization. If you are ready to take your operations to the next level, consider changing your approach to your office’s technology management with managed services.

Every expense that your business takes on needs consideration. When you are looking to keep your business productive, you need to focus on keeping downtime to a minimum. In order to do that you need to have tools that don’t take a lot of work-time maintenance and have professional perspectives available that can help keep operations running when issues with your business’ technology do happen.

If you want to minimize costs, being proactive can go a long way toward this goal. Your business’ technology is one such area where proactive maintenance can allow your company to save countless dollars and hours of downtime. If you haven’t implemented a proactive maintenance platform yet, then you might be putting your company at risk.

It’s not often that something profoundly changes the landscape of business technology management as much as managed services has. When implemented correctly, managed IT services can completely replace the traditional methods of technology management within a company, and it all starts with changing not just your budgeting practices but also your maintenance practices.

When it comes to your business’ IT resources, who’s in charge? Do you have a CIO, or chief information officer, managing your IT decision-making, and do you have someone responsible for managing and maintaining your systems? If you don’t know the answer to either of these questions, then we need to have a conversation about your relationship with technology management.