I want you to think back for a minute to when your business first started.
If you’re anything like The KR Group, it probably involved only a handful of employees with limited office space where you ate too much pizza.
When it came to your IT needs, you only invested in the bare minimum for the few employees to get their jobs done. No bells and whistles or cutting-edge technology.
But, typically after 3 to 5 years, when you can no longer count the number of employees on two hands, business owners start to think about offloading the responsibility of managing IT.
This transition isn’t without growing pains, including as it relates to your technology. A managed IT service provider can’t help you find more employees or bigger office space, but we can handle your technology concerns.
Here are some of the most common worries growing businesses have:
- Necessary vs. beneficial technology
- Increased risk of cyberattacks
- Scaling for continued growth
- Researching the best solutions
If you’re reading this and are still in the beginning stages of your business, don’t fret; you’ll still find helpful information in this article.
However, if you want to read something more directly related to your current IT needs, check out “Are you Ready to Become a Managed IT Services Customer?”
Necessary vs. Beneficial Technology
As your business grows, you’ll cross a line from where you should only be purchasing the essential IT solutions to where you should invest in technology that is beneficial for your operations. 
Take collaboration, for example. When you only have a few people, having dial tone and voicemail is likely sufficient for your new business. However, as you grow, you’ll want to implement additional collaboration tools, such as automated features, contact center, and integrations with your ERP.
Essentially, these features are add-ons that make your staff more efficient and thus more productive.
Whether you’re considering making this investment in collaboration or another area of your IT environment, it can be a scary step to take. But, an MSP will honestly tell you how long you can continue with the bare minimum and when you need to start investing in tech to see better outcomes.
Scaling for Continued Growth
For most organizations, company growth isn’t a single instance.
Whether you’re adding many positions at once or only a couple at a time, you’ll need a tech partner who will grow with you.
One of the benefits of managed IT services is how they scale. From day one of your contract, you have a team of IT experts supporting your environment.
This expertise stays with you, so you can tap into it more and more as your IT environment grows and needs more technical support.
Increased Risk of Cyberattacks
Perhaps the most important reason you should start partnering with an MSP as your business grows is for cybersecurity protection.
You’ve likely assumed that as you add more employees, you’re adding another point of risk for each new user. 
However, this idea of linear risk is false. Instead, the growth is exponential because each new user represents numerous opportunities for a threat to make its way into your environment.
Additionally, the statistics aren’t optimistic for small businesses recovering from a cyberattack. An estimated 60% of small businesses will close for good within six months of a cyberattack.
From the beginning of your contract, an MSP will help you implement safeguards to reduce the risk of a breach. For example, The KR Group requires all managed services customers to have an antivirus solution, DNS filter, firewall, and anti-spam solution.
And, as you grow, you can continue to evaluate if your current level of protection is still appropriate or if you need to look into additional solutions.
Research Best Solutions
Generally speaking, business leaders have a lot of responsibility on their plate, and you likely don’t have the extra time to read through datasheets for different solutions and vet your options.
At the same time, ignoring this process could mean you waste money on technology that doesn’t work well for your company.
Researching new solutions could be a full-time job, but don’t worry. You don’t have to recruit someone to fill this position internally.
When you contract with an MSP, researching new solutions is part of the team’s job.
Any MSP engineer will have a wealth of knowledge about different available solutions and when they do and don’t work well.
Thinking about Managed IT Services for Your Business
As a business, your technology needs will increase over time. Part of this has to do with how rapidly IT changes. However, your growth plays a role as well.
Regardless of if you’re quickly expanding or only adding a couple of new positions at a time, you’ll need more tech to support the changes.
A good MSP will ask about your plans for growth at the beginning of your contract. From there, they’ll guide you in looking at the differences between necessary and beneficial technology and research what solutions are right for your environment.
Additionally, managed IT services will scale with your continued growth while decreasing your risk of cyberattacks.
Wondering what this looks like? In this free guide, you’ll find out more about how all of the above elements are incorporated into a managed IT service contract.
