IT SERVICES Bay Area

IT Service management allows a business to off-load IT operations to a service provider, who is called a Managed Services Provider. The managed service provider assumes an ongoing responsibility for 24-hour monitoring, managing and/or problem resolution for the IT systems within a business.

Every day more and more businesses are learning the value of and changing to Managed Services for their IT needs.

The following is a summarized history of managed services to give you some background relating to how these services have developed. This history pertains specifically to companies who service midsize to small network systems.

Just like larger companies, mid sized to small businesses need technology to operate efficiently and to compete effectively. As reliance on IT grows the resources needed to support this increasingly complex IT environment may not. In many mid sized to small businesses IT resources are limited and can be quickly overwhelmed.

If your business falls behind in keeping up with things such as backups, patches and security, the odds greatly increase that business will face an IT outage or another problem down the road that will negatively impact your business. For instance, if your email server, customer relationship management system, financial application or network goes down, you will likely face substantial productivity and revenue losses as a result.

The Managed Services software in place today allows providers to work towards two major goals:

1. Everything on your network that will result in a user symptom or risk will send an alert before or when it happens and the Managed Service Provider will know about it.
2. Every alert they get is something important and needs to be addressed.

The more closely a Managed Service provider can get to these two goals, the more perfectly they can achieve a truly managed service and the more they can get away from “everything being an emergency” situation.

Every day more and more businesses are turning to a Managed Services Company to service their computer and technology needs. But what does managed services actually mean and how can you tell if an IT Support company is not just using the word as a marketing tool, but is in fact only offering “flat rate” services packaged as “managed services’?

As a definition, managed services allow a business to offload IT operations to a company known as a Managed Services Provider. The managed service provider assumes an ongoing responsibility for 24-hour monitoring, managing and/or problem resolutions for the IT systems within a business.

 Actually no! Surprisingly most managed services cost less than traditional break-fix services. Remote monitoring, remote maintenance and the prevention of major issues allow a managed services provider to be more efficient than a similar break-fix company who is constantly rolling a truck to visit customer sites; therefore the managed service company can offer a “better” service without charging more. Especially when you also factor in the true cost of downtime. 

One of the biggest benefits of Managed Services is discovering and fixing problems before they can negatively affect your business.

A well maintained, proactively serviced computer network will always run better than the alternative. With proactive network monitoring, patch management, and desktop optimization performed on a regular basis, you will notice a tremendous difference in operations … and you will reap the benefits of preventing fires, rather than fighting them.

Reduced costs: Businesses are also able to control and reduce their overall operating costs with the flat-fee billing model. Cost-effective access to enterprise-level support is a reality

24-hour monitoring: Because the Managed Services provider also manages all of your vendor relationships, issues with internet slowness/outages, printers, phones, cell phones, websites are dealt with directly with the vendor by the Managed Service provider. As a result of this “always-eyes-on” network monitoring 24 hours per day, businesses experience an additional level of comfort and security.