IT Support Managed Services Provider Has Your Business Covered

the many ways a good it support managed services provider has your business covered

According to recent IT news; In 2015, hiring managers are looking for workers with very specific skill sets. Some of these include:

  • 41% looking for help desk/IT support
  • 24% looking for security specialists
  • 22% looking for general IT
  • 17% looking for cloud computing pros
  • 16% looking for network administrators, and
  • 15% looking for help with networking

However, though the demand for qualified workers is high, the number of qualified workers is dwindling. According to recent studies, most IT professionals are happy with their current jobs — that typically offer pay from $45,000 to $90,000/year, technology allowances and excellent benefits packages; and the rest of the job candidates simply don’t have the qualifications to keep up with the constantly changing technology industry. However, there is a solution

Why spend the next 3-6 months looking for numerous people to fill all of the open IT positions in your company, when your 4 Corner IT support managed services agreement has you covered in all these areas? Basically, once you’ve hired us, you’ve finished hiring.

When it comes to support, help desk work, general IT, cloud computing, networking and network admin work, our team dresses professionally to come see you and we’re always just a phone call away. We’re constantly making suggestions to improve your network’s speed and performance and we update our training every year with ongoing coursework. We complete your projects on time and work quickly and efficiently.

When it comes to security specialization, every day, we aggressively monitor and patch your computer network’s most critical security settings and keep them up to date. We’re monitoring your system 24/7, 365 days a year. Once we’re on the job, you can know that we’ve backed up your important data and that we’ve got a disaster/recovery plan in place for any emergency.

Contact us today to learn more about the wide variety of computer services we offer companies just like yours, right here in South Florida!

The Key Elements of a Managed Services Provider

the key elements of a managed services provider

What are the key elements of a managed services provider?

What should be included in your services provider package?

Will it offer security in times of a disaster, or anytime?

Here are some ways an effective MSP can help your business thrive and take the worry out of networking and security issues:

Staff and Talent Acquisition

An MSP takes current staff and has them do what they do best, while combining it with the best outsourced agents for specific IT tasks. These can come from a variety of sources. But it still keeps the process under the same roof by calling on specialists from within or without, whenever they are needed the most.

Handles Networking and Security Issues

The complications of networking and keeping your network and servers secure can be immense. Having a managed services provider that takes time and care to ensure it all runs efficiently and limits down time is essential to the smooth operation of a business.

Cloud Service Solutions

A good MSP also provides the best cloud service and integrates all your systems to work with your cloud servers. Cloud storage and maintenance is one of the most important things a business can do to allow for natural disasters, have a reliable backup system, and be able to access files from any location. Choose a managed services provider who understand how things work in the cloud.

IT Support and Management

It is important to be able to get in touch with someone in the event of a crisis. Having all your systems in one place often makes this process simpler and easier to manage. If you do not have to call different places to get the job done, it will also happen faster.

Disaster Recovery Plans

Having a disaster recovery plan is essential to the smooth continuity of your business in the event of a disaster. Plan today by having an MSP who knows how to handle this, and how to design a plan that will work in the event of a crisis.

When looking for the best managed services provider (MSP), it is important that you find one that can handle the above elements when you need them. Networking, security, and cloud-based services, as well as disaster and recovery plans are all essential to the smooth operation of a business.

Having local IT representatives, or at least ones who can respond quickly to any breaches in security or other issues, will help provide a sense of security in the day-to-day routines of your business.

If you need advice on how this applies to your business, or want to consult with us about what we can offer as a managed services provider, contact us.

Are MSP’s Really Fragmented?

are msp really fragmented
Employee On-Boarding

Managed Service Providers are fragmented. I hear that phrase quite frequently. What does it mean?

Most of the time, people say it to infer that MSPs don’t really have a clear market presence with their solutions. That might be true. Other times, it’s just to convey a sense that no single MSP or group of MSPs has a percentage of market share that would considered significant. That also would be true.

The majority of times I hear the word fragmented being used it is from an investor and they are describing what they believe to be a vulnerable marketplace to M&A activity.

As I have said before, the managed services (and now cloud computing) landscape is very different from the VAR days of yesteryear. The investors are not stupid. Their view of the MSP profession is based, in my opinion, on one fundamental misinterpretation. The misinterpretation happens to be very important and could be an explanation of why the M&A activity within managed services has not been particularly consistent over the last decade.

I have always looked at the MSPs as professional services firms. That simple distinction informs much of what I believe about MSPs today. Viewing MSPs as professional services firms, in contrast to commodity providers (product or services), will help put these companies into perspective and allow anyone to easily make sense of how they operate.

More importantly, such a perspective will also greatly help inform investors and M&A candidates on how to effectively analyze and effectuate an investment, merger, or acquisition within this profession.

As to the question about whether MSPs are fragmented or not, I will simply say this. No single MSP or small group of  MSPs dominates the marketplace today. Furthermore, I do not believe this will ever happen. The reason is simple.

Customers demand high touch and intimacy from their MSPs. The larger the MSP gets the less likely that intimacy will be delivered. Therefore, there is a natural size limit at which managed services can be effectively delivered and appreciated by the customer before it becomes a commodity. Generally, once the MSP reaches this size threshold, their customers will demand more attention and may even leave if they do not get it.

MSPs, like other professional services firms, thrive on delivering high value, profitable services  Once that primary purpose becomes subjugated to size, commoditized services, and impersonal customer service, the customer will likely seek their services elsewhere.

This simple concept is what makes even the smallest of MSPs so valuable to their customers.