True Managed Service Provider vs. Reactive Providers
True Managed Service Provider vs. Reactive Providers
A true managed service provider offers proactive management of your IT infrastructure.
Business leaders tell us often that what they really want from technology is for it to just work. They want to sleep at night knowing that their systems are secure, and they’ve done everything they can as an organisation to keep their systems secure.
Business owners also want to know that they have the right technology in place for their organisation. And a true managed service provider will understand your business objectives and have a strategy to leverage technology to get there.
They’re also responsible for executing that strategy. This means, in addition to understanding your business, an MSP puts together a plan to keep your infrastructure up to date. They make sure that everything’s working properly.
An MSP also monitors your systems, installs updates, and makes improvements in the back-end. It’s really about making small but consistent improvements to your infrastructure until you reach that point where everything just works.
What to Look for in a Managed Service Provider
There are a couple of things you should look for in a management service provider.
The first is a strategy. If you meet with an MSP, they should be able to explain their strategy or plan for IT in your organisation. They should also demonstrate that they understand your business and will be able to drive your organisation forward by leveraging technology.
The second factor is the proactivity of your MSP. A lot of people think the most important IT service is support, but an MSP isn’t just reactive. If we can get you to a spot where everything just works, you’ll be much happier than if you have good support. You should see improvements on a month to month basis.
Third, measurability is important. Your managed service provider should have a way to measure success and the health of your IT infrastructure. You should have data points and KPIs that show your business moving in the right direction.
As an organisation, we give our clients that measurement. We show them if they are 99% aligned with our best practices, or 56% aligned, and that’s a good reference to use for business decisions. Owners can see if there are things that we need attention.
Ownership of Your IT Infrastructure
One of the values of a management service provider is taking ownership of your IT infrastructure. The results from that alone can help your business.
We’ve heard a lot of stories from prospects about people pointing fingers over IT responsibilities that caused friction.
One client that we brought on, for example, had one vendor who was responsible for one part of their infrastructure and another vendor responsible for another part of their infrastructure. At one point, both vendors were saying that the problem wasn’t their fault and to talk to the other vendor.
This left our client in a really difficult and frustrating position because they didn’t have anywhere to turn. They made the switch to a true managed service provider relationship so that one entity would take ownership of the whole environment. And your MSP should take ownership as well.
This comes into play in other areas too. Maybe there’s a problem with your internet service provider, or your copier, or something else related to technology. There may not be something that your MSP can do about the problem directly, but they can work with the other vendors to make sure that the issues are cleared up. And that gives you, as the client, one point of contact when you have a problem that you know will get results.
