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by Chris Day @ Fully Managed™ One of the things we talk about a lot when engaging with new prospects in Vancouver or Edmonton for the first time is the "three pillars" of Managed Services: Value, Performance & Risk. These three pillars provide a simple model of how outsourcing IT support, at least in some capacity, make sense for many businesses. Today, I want to talk about one of the most important pillars and reasons why our clients choose us: risk mitigation. Below are a few elements to consider:
When you partner with a reputable IT service company, you are likely to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of deploying and maintaining technology. These organizations have a deep and wide pool of architects, systems engineers, help desk staff, managers, etc. and many business processes and best practices designed to make your network infrastructure run more efficiently. These companies deploy solutions which have been tested and deployed often hundreds of times over and have stood the test of time. With an IT department, particularly one that is stagnant or uninspired, you may find that there are limited resources and experiences to draw on within the team. Solutions may end up costing you far more than they should as a result and result in damaging budget overruns.
Typically when working with an outsourced IT firm, such as a Managed Services Provider (MSP), you are entering into a contractual agreement between two business entities. Most providers provide a service level agreement (SLA) and many other terms of engagement which provide you, the business owner / stakeholder, some recourse in the event that the provider does not make good on their commitment - e.g. an SLA breach, misrepresentation of services, or even something more serious like a privacy or security breach. It's difficult (if not impossible) to embark on any sort of legal claim against an individual and hope for a successful outcome.
A significant advantage of working with an SLA is in the event of a disaster situation such as a fire, flood, theft situation. Not all providers are created equal, but when these situations occur a virtual army of technical resources can be mobilized to ensure that operations are brought back online as quickly as possible - even if the event occurs in the middle of the night. It's unlikely you'd want to ask (or be successful asking) your staff to come in at 3AM on a Saturday night.
When you work with a company, hopefully they stick to best practices and implement them whenever possible within their client environments. We have found many businesses who have been led down a road littered with poor technology decisions due to IT "religions" - for example, "Let's go open source." or "Let's change everything to Mac". Business owners can sometimes be left at the mercy of their IT guy and have to accept on good faith what they are suggesting. This usually results in the dreaded "Forklift Upgrade" a short while in the future.
What happens if a key IT resource to your business wins the lottery and walks away or decides it's time to move on? Most typically, all of the knowledge and experience of your environment walks away with them. By partnering with an IT service company you avoid this risk completely.
Like anyone else, IT staff need management and direction. It's extremely common to run into issues managing IT staff. These individuals can often become uninspired, disgruntled or gain a superiority complex as they become more comfortable with the management structure. It's not easy to manage what you don't understand and for that reason a very small IT department often ends up with morale, motivation or attitude problems which are difficult to address. This can be avoided by working with a company where the technical staff are already managed, part of a team and with growth opportunity.
Although obvious, this risk factor is often overlooked. Particularly with a small IT department of 1 or 2 people, what happens when a key resource is sick, on leave, on vacation, etc? These blackouts tend to happen at the most inopportune moments. The problem with IT, more often than not, is that your entire operation depends on it and can easily grind to a halt if a critical issue is not handled immediately. If a key resource is not around, the impact can be devastating.
