: News
Featured Article: Managed Services Makes Cents for SMB’s
Matthew Koop
Solution Advisor - BizTech
Managed Services are changing the way IT companies do business and the small to medium size businesses (SMB’s) are reaping the benefits. Companies that are outsourcing their IT needs to Managed Service Providers (MSP’s) are able to save money and budget their IT expenses more accurately than ever before.
Most SMB’s have either a relatively small budget or no budget at all set aside for IT. Traditionally, companies wait until a network failure or problem occurs and then they call the help desk to resolve the issue. When a network failure does occur, CFO’s are scrambling through their budgets to scrape up whatever money they can find.
Consider this typical scenario:
Tracy is an administrative assistant and she is working on inputting sales orders into her computer for some new clients. While in the middle of entering data, her computer pops up a message and says “The application has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” Before Tracy can save anything she loses everything she was just working on. Her first instinct is to throw the computer through the window, but after she regains her composure, she decides to call the help desk. Naturally, she gets put on hold because when the server crashed, everyone else that was connected is now trying to desperately get through to the help desk as well. Frustrated from being on hold for so long, Tracy hangs up the phone and decides to forget about working for a while because she can’t do her job anyway and instead decides to shoot the breeze with her fellow coworkers in the break room.
How much money was just lost because of this downtime? Can you quantify the dollar amount that was lost in potential revenue? What about Tracy’s labor cost? Can you put a dollar amount on her lack of productivity? Consider the intangible costs of the organization’s reputation being damaged due to the inability to perform. What was the cost of downtime from everyone else that was connected to that server? The impact can be immense. According to Gartner Dataquest, the average cost per hour of network downtime can range from $90K per hour for retail operations to nearly $6.5M for financial brokerage firms.
The idea of having an MSP as a trusted IT partner gets companies away from the break/fix mentality that most businesses are used to utilizing. A strong MSP will minimize downtime by proactively maintaining the health of an organization’s network through monitoring, routine maintenance and detailed assessments. These precautions alone can save companies thousands of dollars each year.
Often times SMB’s have only one person dedicated to their IT department. In many cases the same person that is in charge of the IT is also in charge of the finance office or the engineering department. Companies are spending thousands of dollars investing in their network but are reluctant to pay someone to get the most out of that investment.
By partnering with an MSP, an organization can rely on qualified experts to take care of this enormous responsibility for a fraction of the cost of hiring a qualified IT Administrator. In essence, the MSP becomes their IT staff.
By engaging in a partnership agreement, now the burden of maintaining a healthy network environment falls into the hands of the MSP and not on one sole individual who most likely has a plethora of other responsibilities.
Another huge advantage of signing on with an MSP is the ease of forecasting for CFO’s and small business owners. Because an MSP’s services are subscription based, the cost of having support is lumped into one predictable monthly fee. Being able to plan ahead for your IT expenses gives business owners and “C” level executives the peace of mind they need to allow them to focus on more important items, like running their business.
In today’s business world many companies are completely dependent on their network. When a system goes down, revenue is being lost. Opportunities are being missed and productivity spirals downward. Having a qualified and trusted MSP that you can subscribe to will minimize downtime and optimize network performance. Being able to do all of this at a fraction of the cost of having a complete in house IT staff makes budgeting for IT simple and allows for the smaller companies to be able to compete with the larger corporations, in terms of technology.
BizTech offers a variety of managed services to their current clients that include real-time network monitoring, remote offsite backup services, external penetration testing, SPAM filtering, and much more. BizTech prides itself on increasing their clientele through building positive relationships with their customers. According to Bill Wass, the Senior Network Engineer at BizTech, “We have found that a Service Level Agreement driven by Managed Services is an invaluable mechanism for strengthening the relationships with our customers. The benefit to the customer is an alliance with an IT business partner who shares in their vision for success.” MSP’s are saving their customer’s money while also providing a higher quality of service. The end result is that BizTech and other competent MSP’s are successful because they are able to help their customers be more successful.
About BizTech
Founded in 1999, Business Technical
Consulting, LLC is headquartered in
Toledo, Ohio. BizTech offers information
technology solutions for a variety
of vertical markets including healthcare,
manufacturing, education, government
and financial. BizTech is a Microsoft
Certified Partner, Comptia A+ Certified
and a Citrix Authorized Solution Advisor.
BizTech offers products from industry
leading manufacturers such as Microsoft,
Dell, HP, Citrix, Cisco, Symantec,
Sonicwall and Wyse. BizTech’s
other subsidiaries include BizTech
Web Design, BizTech VISUAL Solutions,
BizTech Network Solutions and thinclientpricing.com.
BizTech serves over 800 customers
throughout the United States and has
representatives in Ohio, Colorado,
Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Contact Info
Joe Zalewski
Managing Partner, COO
Business Technical Consulting, LLC
3306 Executive Pkwy. Suite 201
Toledo, OH 43606
PH: 419.539.6922 X203
Email: jzalewski@gobiztech.com
BizTech
News Archive ->
|
