Are Managed Service Providers Worth the Cost?

When you have the option of hiring an in-house IT professional or outsourcing to a Managed Service Provider it can be a difficult decision to make.  Which would be most beneficial to your company?  What is the best way to guarantee you will have the constant support that you need?  Which one is most cost effective?  At first glance, you may think the simpler choice is to hire an in-house IT professional, someone you can have right at your fingertips in case you run into technology trouble. But what if hiring a Managed Service Provider unknowingly ends up being the best fit for your company?

Let’s start by breaking down each option.

It is difficult to determine your annual IT cost spent by just considering the salary you provide to your IT Manager.  There are many factors that quickly add onto this cost, such as employee health cost benefits, 401K, and vacation time.  What if your IT employee is out sick?  If a problem were to arise, who will take over their responsibilities in the meantime?  Another thing to consider is the recent drop in the rate of cost per employee for IT support.  About 56% of organizations are now increasing their cloud spending, while only about 10% are still investing in a data center infrastructure.  More and more small businesses are partnering with Managed Service Providers for cloud support, due to the cut in costs and convenience.

Since cyberattacks are targeting small to mid-size businesses, research has proven that more than three-quarters of in-house IT professionals admitted that they lack the resources and training that is needed to take care of outside threats.  They simply do not have the tools and expertise to take on a big issue like that.  These types of issues should be in the hands of experienced and certified technicians, which is what you would get if you hired a Managed Service Provider, such as CATS Technology Solutions Group.  Since technology is constantly changing, it has become near impossible for one person to know all the IT skills that are needed.  Trying to manage it in-house or adding additional staff would not help solve the problem and would be a waste of time and money.

Taking into consideration the common day-to-day IT functions that you will come across can be very beneficial when making your decision.  Network security and backup systems are both very crucial for any business and should be at the top of your IT priority list.  Third-party specialists have more equipped resources and the flexibility to monitor your systems and pro-actively detect cyberattacks, compared to in-house security specialists.  Also, having a backup in place for your systems will help get everything up and running quickly.  Maintaining the back up of your own systems means your IT professional will need to spend a lot of business hours on daily backups as well as considering software, hardware and disk space.  When staying in-house, this task is sometimes not given the appropriate attention simply because of the lack of time and resources.  If you were to hire a Managed Service Provider, you would get an entire team of IT professionals to focus on you and your needs.

CATS Technology Solutions Group is able to handle all of your IT needs on a day-to-day basis at a single source cost.  Our staff has over 75 years of combined experience, skills, and certifications that will be applied to whatever services you need.   Not only that, but you will also have access to an entire team of IT technicians who work around the clock, 24/7/365.  Your costs will be lowered, your resources will be increased, and you will be able to focus solely on your growing business rather than any IT issues, since you will be fully covered!

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