Minimize downtime with proactive services - Early issue detection leads to fewer problems that actually affect the end-user and ultimately your business.Often, day-to-day computer issues start out as barely noticeable. Much like that tiny rattle in your car, over time they can go from being a no-big-deal status to an over-night-in-the-shop ordeal. Managed IT providers run reporting and monitoring tools that detect issues and report back whenever a potential problem is discovered. That way it can be fixed before it causes frustration and downtime for your employees.
Many issues can be detected early and prevented before they escalate and start to lower the utilization of your staff, causing a loss of time and money.
Some of these issues include:
Awareness of these issues creates a “healthier” environment just as a “wellness” exam at the doctor
With a trusted Managed IT consultant, your business won't need to rely on vendor support.When technology fails, your first inclination is to contact the vendor to try to get as much free support as possible (or at least agreed to in your warranty). This usually includes long, pointless phone calls where you or your employees get cycled around a call center. More often than not the issue doesn’t get fixed on the first call and you are back to square one. Managed IT providers can not only handle specific hardware and software support, but handle managing your IT vendors for you.
When compared to the standard break-fix computer company, Managed IT firms deal with business-class vendors and build relationships with vendors. This means things like warranty and support agreements can all be handled by your outsourced IT firm instead of by your employees, and support for specific hardware and software can be done right through your IT consultant instead of by multiple vendors. This gives you and your staff a single point of contact for all of your technical support needs.
One major downfall of traditional IT is the unexpected surprise costs that come when mission critical technology fails and needs to be fixed. During downtime, you are already paying your employees despite a major loss of productivity, while also paying hourly fees for technical support to resolve the problem. Managed IT is based on a flat-rate payment model where you pay to prevent downtime, both greatly reducing downtime and minimizing unexpected costs.
When an expense varies greatly from month to month it can be difficult to plan and budget accurately. With the flat-rate payment model you practically eliminate recovery costs since it is all covered under your agreement. Knowing that most issues are covered means you pay the same amount each month, and allows you to budget for new projects and expansion much easier. Your Managed IT provider can even give you the precise costs associated with adding a new user to the agreement in the event you do hire additional employees.
The regular maintenance and monitoring that allows your IT provider to manage your network, servers, and workstations reduces these issues greatly as well, and can also give insight and early warnings to issues so you can plan ahead. Depending on your agreement with your IT provider, nearly all issues are completely covered under the flat-rate with the exception of new hardware, software and on-site visits – costs that typically pale in comparison to costs of supporting IT hourly.
Costs are also reduced because most maintenance tasks are standardized, proceduralized, and easily repeatable through automation.
Running a small business doesn’t mean you need to suffer from the lowest-end solutions. Enterprise-level support and solutions can be made available to your organization to give you the cutting edge in communications or to help you sleep at night with bullet-proof backup and security. When partnering with a Managed IT provider, you get access to technology solutions that are normally reserved for big corporate enterprises at costs geared towards your budget.
Looking to implement a secondary office to function over the same network or controlling the web content your users can access? Taking advantage of Managed IT providers like RMM Solutions can help provide cutting-edge solutions to keep your company moving forward.
Here are just a few of the solutions RMM Solutions can offer you:
Standard IT operations consist of many critical, yet repetitive technical tasks that take time and experience to perform. The traditional method has no place for many of these time-consuming critical tasks due to the hourly billing that most traditional IT providers charge. These standard, day-to-day tasks, such as updating and running anti-virus, applying and testing Windows security patches, and monitoring the health of data backup solutions, are then the responsibility of the employee or not attended to at all.
Employees should focus on strategic business initiatives, not general IT maintenance. Just as concerning, most of these critical tasks aren’t performed properly, if at all, leading to additional issues, security breaches, and costly downtime.
A Managed IT provider can easily perform these repetitive maintenance tasks through automated tools and monitoring applications that report back any issues or missing updates. Through best practices and documented procedures, these routine tasks can be performed quickly and cost-effectively without needing to take an employee offline and tasks that require the workstation to be rebooted or need resources to run scans can be scheduled for after-hours.
With Managed IT services, your staff no longer needs to focus on keeping their workstation up-to-date with Windows updates, run disk defrags or virus scans, or waste time on PC maintenance, effectively returning precious time to your organization and allowing employees to get more done during the course of the business day.