It’s safe to say that most businesses look forward to growing and expanding in the years to come, but many don’t realize how much IT will have a significant impact on these goals.
You never want to let your IT network go down nowadays, and it’s not cheap to keep it running with a team that’s fully in house. That’s why lots of startups are looking to MSPs as a low cost solution that will keep IT systems up and running without breaking the bank.
Here, we’ll go over what MSPs are, how they work with your business, and how they can potentially help you achieve some of your long term goals.
What is an MSP?
MSPs – otherwise known as Managed Service Providers – are basically pre-made IT teams who work outside of your office building and who aren’t directly on your payroll. You’ll likely see and hear much less of them than you would an in-house team, but they can provide a similar level of support.
It’s also usually much easier to get an MSP onboard than it is to hire a dedicated IT team – in fact, if you were to search up MSPs right now and find one that looks decent, you could give them a call and likely have them working with you by the end of the week! Because MSPs have a roster of IT professionals with a wide variety of knowledge and skills, they will be able to quickly add you into the list of companies they work for.
MSPs are paid by a monthly fee, which grants your business access to managed networking services and support packages that they provide – and considering the combined experience of the staff, these prices tend to be pretty low.
This is because the MSP can charge a high number of companies less money as they aren’t working for a sole business, allowing them to spread their enormous staffing costs over a range of businesses.
Will an MSP cost less than hiring an in-house team?
Though you might tend to think about the bigger, more exciting things when budgeting your business such as product launches and new marketing campaigns, you’ll likely know how quickly day to day costs can pile up if you aren’t careful – and these can become astronomical when you factor in things like recruitment drives.
Without even adding in the potential cost of wages, the entire process of hiring a new member of staff – particularly an IT professional – can result in a cost of several thousand pounds in lost resources, staffing, training, and more. And if you’re looking to hire an entire team, you can multiply every cost we just mentioned.
So that’s one clear benefit of hiring an MSP – because they’re responsible for the hiring process, these extra fees vanish, and someone else has already done the hard work of figuring out who’s going to be the best for the job.
It might not be immediate clear how this can benefit your business growth, but just think about what you could be doing with the money you save on recruitment costs. These are funds that you could put into areas like research and development, marketing, sales recruitment, and other areas that will really help to push growth forward.
Can improving your IT network help grow your business?
Now that you understand how money saved from hiring an in-house team can be repurposed into areas of your business that drive growth, we can start considering how an MSP can help to grow your business through IT itself.
It’s easy to view an MSP as just a service that keeps your IT afloat, but it can actually be much more than this once you find the best provider for your business and start to consider what else that can provide.
Think about the number of businesses a single MSP works with – they’re always witnessing, and helping, the growth of other companies, and are likely to have insights into what has historically worked with these businesses.
Combined with an up to date knowledge of the latest developments in networking technology employed by companies worldwide, and you have a valuable ally in helping your company grow.
From introducing MPLS into your network to providing an SD WAN solution, a provider can advise you on a wide variety of networking tech and help you understand what could benefit your business in the long run.
While you may have to pay a fee for this consultancy service, this is certainly worth it in the long run if it results in exponential IT and business growth.
How do you find the right provider?
While you can grow your business in a myriad of ways, you can usually boil down the methods to utilizing two important resources: money and knowledge. If you choose to work with an MSP, you’ll be saving money, but you’ll also have access to a wealth of information from experts who’ll know how best to apply it to your business.
However, this growth can only happen if you’re working with a provider who understands your company’s needs, and this takes a little more research than looking at the first few Google results – after all, having a good SEO strategist doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the best MSP for you!
When you’re starting to contact potential MSPs, it’s good practice to ask whether they’ve ever worked for companies that are like your own in some way, whether than means of a similar size or in a similar industry. You could also ask about their own plans for future growth – you’ll need to know whether they can keep up with where you want to be!
If you choose the right MSP, they can become a valuable asset to your company, and if they want your startup to grow as much as you do, you could be an amazing team.
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Author: Amira Anjum
