To stay ahead of the curve, businesses need to have solutions up and running as effectively as possible because any downtime can drop a company’s productivity. The good news – there’s an easy way to get control over your IT operations without building a large in-house team of experts.

This way is called IT managed services.

Managed IT services give you the support you need for your critical IT technology — development, networks, servers, security, quality assurance, etc. — without the cost and hassle of managing everything in-house.

For instance, it is estimated that a successful introduction of managed services is able to reduce IT cost by 25-45% and boost operational efficiency by 45-65%.

But these are not the only advantages you get from partnering with a managed IT service provider (typically referred to as an MSP). Check out here the benefits of managed IT services.

In this article, we will:

analyze the top problems that make businesses opt for managed services (so you can compare whether your company faces them);
review major IT services you can receive;
clear up what types of companies can benefit from managed IT services.

4 main problems solved by a good managed IT service provider

#1. High costs of maintaining the in-house IT team
Investments in technologies and qualified IT staff have never been (and cannot be) cheap.

However, managed IT services are often less expensive than owning an in-house department. Just count up the overall costs of hiring an IT expert including recruiting, payroll, taxes, employee benefits, office space, equipment, insurance, overtime pay, training, retaining, etc. All this turns out to be a luxury most companies cannot afford.

Managed IT service providers (MSPs) give you immediate access to a pool of qualified specialists with expertise gained from dozens of projects like yours. You obtain not just experts but a well-knit team that is managed from the vendor’s side. This improves productivity and streamlines processes right off the bat.

Moreover, you get the chance to get a tailor-made offer from most of the IT-managed service providers.

MindK provides customers with a service agreement customized to specific company needs. For example, you might decide that you can manage your infrastructure in-house, but you’d like the service provider to undertake web app development, etc.

In short: our clients never have to buy more than they really need or want.

#2. Slow innovation
New technologies and innovations are the most costly investments in the IT industry. In-house teams need to constantly follow new technology advancements taking valuable resources away from progressing your business.

If you can’t adapt to the changing technologies, you’re setting up your business to be disrupted by competitors.

While adapting can be challenging for in-house IT teams, an IT-managed service is built to do exactly that, adapt. They provide companies with access to cutting-edge technologies right from the start.

A lightning-fast adaptation paired with access to more resources, a robust working approach and experience gained from various projects translates into new technological advancements that can be implemented almost immediately.

This alone can justify the price of a managed service provider.

#3. Scalability challenges
Scalability is critical to maintaining the company’s growth. In the fast-changing business environment, your company has to scale-up or scale-down resources on demand.

While it’s quite a challenge to react quickly to scalability needs in-house, managed IT services can provide the required support to handle the growth at short notice. No matter whether you need an in-house team extension or a (fully-remote) dedicated team to reach your goals.

What’s more, hiring an IT service partner to augment your regular staff is the perfect solution to free-up or reallocate the resources.

In such a way, your team can focus on strategic goals, for example, setting the targets you want to achieve in the future as your business grows and changes.

#4. Break-fix approach
Quite often, companies reach out to third-party providers when some critical problem appears. This can lead to decreased performance and additional costs for a business.

When you opt for a managed IT service, you turn from putting out the fires to preventing them (entirely). Using a fire extinguisher is always better (and cheaper!) than rebuilding your house. This is exactly what a managed IT service provider does, namely, supports you while minimizing the issues that can negatively influence your company’s success.

It directly relates to such services as DevOps that guarantees your infrastructure is secure, or quality assurance that makes certain that your product is running well and bug-free.