Biggest Challenges Businesses Face with Technology (& How Managed IT Services Solve Them)

While technology is necessary for your business, it also poses specific challenges.

If technology isn’t your forte, then these challenges can throw major hurdles at you as you operate your business. 

But when you sign a managed IT services contract, you’ll no longer face these challenges alone. 

Managed IT service providers (MSPs), like The KR Group, partner with organizations like yours to help you with your everyday problems, planning for future improvement, and general IT  support. 

Some of the most common challenges we see companies needing support with include: 

1. Staying updated on cybersecurity
2. Keeping current with technology
3. Redundancy and backup solutions
4. Compliance measures
5. Utilizing your MSP 

When you overcome these challenges, your IT environment and business as a whole should run smoother, enabling you to spend more time on what makes you profitable. 

Challenge #1: Staying Updated on Security

This challenge is first on the list because it’s likely the one that causes the most stress. 

Not only can cybersecurity feel complicated and overwhelming, but it’s essential you have a plan in place. 

Cybersecurity attacks are increasing in frequency, and attackers’ methods are getting more complex. Additionally, their ramifications have a broader reach than even a few years ago. 

To keep up with the fast pace of cyberattacks, security solutions must continually evolve to address the latest exploits. 

When IT isn’t your field of expertise, how can you stay updated on the latest, most effective solutions and protocols? 

The Solution

Working with an MSP, you’ll have access to experts in cybersecurity. Since keeping your IT environment operational and secure is their primary focus, your engineers will ensure they — and in turn, you — are aware of what’s the latest in cybersecurity. 

Challenge #2: Keeping Current with Technology

Even if you take cybersecurity out of the equation, technology, in general, is rapidly changing. As a result, solutions that were the latest and greatest couple of years ago have been replaced — in some cases multiple times — by a model that meets the current demand.

However, eventually, that piece will be outdated, too. 

Even if you aren’t focused on having every cutting-edge solution, you’ll want to have current technology in your IT environment. But how do you balance staying current without always spending copious amounts of money on tech that will be outdated in a couple of years? 

The Solution

An MSP can help your business keep its technology current and supported in a few ways. 

First, when you’re in the market for new devices or solutions, they know upcoming end-of-life dates. They’ll check how soon solutions will be phased out before presenting them to you as a solution. 

They can help you plan for refresh cycles and have a plan in place to keep updated solutions in your IT environment.

Either way, your MSP will give you the information you need to know to make an educated, lasting decision. 

Challenge #3: Redundancy and Backup Solutions

An unexpected outage or hardware failure has the potential to cause lost productivity or even cease operations. 

Even scarier, fire or flood could ruin or destroy your data and leave you trying to resume your organization from the ground floor. 

Having a plan B makes sense; however, designing it and implementing it within your business can be a bit more technical. 

The Solution

Redundancy and backup solutions are your best bets to ensure data loss, outages, and hardware failures have little to no effect on your business. 

Redundancy means you have a second solution or device to pick up the slack when something stops working. 

For example, a second internet circuit provides redundancy to keep your business connected to the network. Likewise, a spare firewall would keep protecting your network if your primary device stopped working. 

On the other hand, backup solutions save a copy of your data offsite, so if it is deleted or destroyed, you can still retrieve it. 

Challenge #4: Compliance measures

While this challenge isn’t a factor for all businesses, it is significant for those it applies to. 

If you’re already not an IT expert adding these additional controls can seem overwhelming. But first, you must get it right to avoid fines or even having to close your business. 

Understanding all the nuances and rules that apply to your IT environment doesn’t have to fall on you. 

The Solution

One of the benefits of working with an MSP is that they have experience with multiple organizations, so they have likely helped another customer with needs that are similar to yours.

When it comes to compliance, this is particularly beneficial because it means your MSP could have other clients in the same industry that must abide by the same regulations. 

If you’re still unsure if your MSP can meet your compliance needs, just ask them. They’ll be honest with you if they are knowledgeable about your specific compliance needs or if it’s something that would be new for them. 

Either way, an MSP can take a load of stress off you when you have to abide by industry regulations. 

Challenge #5: Utilizing Your MSP 

Working with an MSP will help you address the above challenges and your daily needs. In an ideal world, your MSP will do this so well you forget what it was like to be worried about your IT. 

There is a challenge to this perfect scenario. 

Once your MSP gets everything working and planned, sometimes their services get forgotten with everything else you have going on. 

Worst case scenario, you forget to have your MSP keep up on IT problems, and you’re back to having an IT environment bogged down in issues.

The Solution

Many MSPs, including The KR Group, help you avoid this challenge by scheduling regular, on-site appointments to check in on you and your IT environment. 

This gives your MSP a chance to continually build a rapport with you and catch issues right away to keep your IT working well. 

Working with Your MSP

Technology poses specific challenges to your business, but you’ll have the solutions to each one with a managed services contract. 

You won’t have to worry about staying updated on cybersecurity or keeping your IT environment current. Instead, you can rest easy knowing you have implemented redundancy and backup solutions. 

If you have to consider compliance regulations, your MSP will address this with knowledge and experience. 

Finally, a reputable MSP will work with you to stay at the forefront of your mind and keep up on even the most minor IT issues. 

These are only a few of the things you can accomplish with a managed services contract. To learn more about what working with an MSP, specifically The KR Group, looks like, check out our free e-guide.