MANAGED IT SERVICES OVERVIEW
From email to data storage to workstation devices, all businesses rely on technology to stay competitive in today’s business landscape.
While technology is undoubtedly beneficial to your business, it doesn’t take care of itself.
A managed IT services contract is an option many small businesses turn to for help monitoring, maintaining, and securing their technology investments.
At The KR Group, our passion is to provide managed services for companies who are looking to add value and efficiency to their technology plan.
By using a remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform, managed service providers (MSP) continually monitor the health and performance of your IT network.
Managing your IT environment is a full-time job. When you trust us to do it for you, you’ll find more time to focus on what makes you profitable.
Managed IT Services Benefits
With The KR Group’s managed services, you can stop worrying about your IT by having someone else solve your problems before they happen. You can expect early detection and remediation of issues before they cause downtime or data loss.
When it comes to planning ahead and budgeting for future IT expenses, we can help by generating regular reports to provide insight into your IT systems, including the business value and services being received.
Other benefits of a managed services contract with The KR Group include:
- Redundancy: We staff multiple engineers to respond to your IT needs.
- Knowledgeable: We employ highly skilled engineers who can be difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to recruit and afford.
- Cost-effective: For the price, we offer the most value with our highly available and skillful engineers.
- On-site assistance: We pre-schedule on-site appointments to ensure we’re there to physically help with your IT problems.
- Availability: An engineer is available to address your IT problems 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Predictability: You’ll pay a fixed monthly fee based on the number of users you have.
- Security: Along with continual monitoring, your data will be securely stored in the cloud.
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Managed IT Services Candidates
Managed services make sense for many businesses, but does it make sense for yours?
At The KR Group, our managed services contracts are best suited for businesses with 10 to 100 users. Within this range, we’ve found there are a few types of businesses that especially benefit from outsourcing their IT.
- Businesses governed by industry regulations trust the knowledge and experience that managed services provide
- Start-up businesses anticipating fast growth can trust managed services to scale with them
- Some larger organizations with only a fraction of employees who rely on computers daily can take advantage of managed services
This list isn’t exhaustive, though, and any small or medium business looking for a better return on their IT budget can benefit from managed IT services.
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Managed IT Services Contract
If you decide our managed IT services are right for you, you’ll need to sign a contract to formally partner with us.
While we always review our contracts with customers before they sign on for our services, there are a few components we want to highlight for you.
- We recommend a standardized hardware and software suite to streamline services.
- Normal hours of service are between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, but you can make emergency requests after hours for an additional charge.
- You’ll agree to a term of 1, 3, or 5 years to stick with us for managed services.
- Contracts come with a 90-day trial period, but after that, you’ll have to pay out the remainder of your contract if you decide to switch.
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Managed IT Services Cost
Your IT needs are unique and a managed services contract from The KR Group will reflect that. This also means the cost for each customer will look different.
However, there are a few ways you can estimate the cost of a contract:
- A one-time fee of $500 per site for an audit
- A one-time fee of $750-$2,000 per site for a physical firewall
- A recurring fee of $85-$100 per user per month for software suite and back-up storage
You can expect to receive a monthly invoice. Charging this way is often helpful for our customers because it allows them to allocate the cost as an operating expense instead of a capital expense.
The contract is only a portion of the budget you should have for managed IT services, though.
You’ll also need to budget for equipment replacement and services excluded from your contract. The contract covers the majority of your IT costs, but it isn’t all-encompassing.
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Managed IT Services Alternatives
While there are many great aspects to our managed IT services, we know they aren’t a fit for everyone.
To help those who are looking for some help with IT but don’t want everything a traditional managed services contract comes with, there are a few other options.
- Augmented IT services: With this option, the IT duties are split between us and your internal IT department.
- Remote-only managed services: This option reduces the price of a contract in exchange for eliminating non-emergency on-site appointments.
- Engineering block time: If you’re not interested in the commitment of a contract, this option still makes IT assistance available to you.
