Switching from a Vacant Internal IT Team to Managed IT Services

Internal IT to managed IT servicesIf you’ve tried to fill any position this year, you know the toll that labor shortages currently have on businesses. 

As a small or medium business, the above statistics could leave you without an IT team altogether. So what are your options? 

Managed IT services are becoming a popular alternative for a small internal IT department. Since they’re an outsourced IT solution, the burden of filling positions is eased for this particular area of your business. 

When you hire a managed IT service provider (MSP), they become responsible for your IT environment and manage and maintain it on your behalf.

At The KR Group, we’ve found ourselves talking about managed IT services more often as technology needs have developed over the past couple of years. While it may make sense on paper to outsource this portion of your business, we’ve also heard about how intimidating this significant kind of change can be. 

To ease any anxiousness you may have, we have answers to some of your most pressing questions, such as:

  1. How does an MSP compare to an internal IT department?
  2. What’s the value of managed IT services?
  3. What benefits do you get from managed IT services? 

Remember managed IT services are only one option to consider for your IT needs, and it’s what you’ll read about in this article. For other IT support options, you can check out our more comprehensive comparison article

Managed IT Services vs. Internal IT Support

When you have a small IT department, their focus is primarily on keeping your business running. Internal IT to managed IT services

There simply isn’t enough time or resources to dedicate to larger projects. Overall, it’s difficult for a handful of employees (or fewer) to keep your mission-critical IT running and simultaneously research, budget, and implement new solutions into the environment. 

Unfortunately, this is just the nature of a small internal IT department. 

While you may enjoy having them embedded into your organization’s culture and available on-site, at some point, your IT employees are going to get overwhelmed continually reacting and fall behind on proactive measures. 

However, those are precisely the areas where an MSP excels.

Whether it’s the managed services or IT infrastructure team, someone in the MSP’s organization will help you understand and implement new solutions without sacrificing day-to-day IT support. 

The Value of Managed IT Services

The amount you’ll spend on managed IT services will vary based on the size of your organization, and there’s a chance the dollar amount could exceed your current IT spend. 

However, for the cost, you’ll receive value previously missing from your IT department. 

The term IT consultants used to describe this is operational maturity, which means that your IT infrastructure, maintenance, and management is consistent, reliable, and resilient.

An example of this is looking for cybersecurity solutions. To have the best software and processes, you’ll pay more to keep current and stay ahead. However, the alternative could be a costly breach or even going out of business. 

Additionally, MSPs have the staff to dedicate a team of engineers to keep up with emerging cybersecurity threats and subsequent solution improvements. An internal IT department rarely has these resources. 

Benefits of Managed IT Services

Internal IT to managed IT servicesIf you’re still not convinced managed IT services are a viable option for your business, consider two of the most significant benefits of the solution: redundancy and accessibility.

With a small IT department, you have your eggs all in one, maybe two, baskets. When an engineer or manager leaves your organization, you’re left scrambling trying to find a replacement and catch them up on what’s going on with your IT. 

Managed IT services natively have redundancy incorporated into their structure. Since there is a team of MSP engineers working with its multiple clients, someone is always available to work on your urgent IT issues, even if your assigned engineer is out of the office. 

Plus, MSPs have the budget to hire highly-skilled and knowledgeable engineers that may be outside of what you could afford for an internal employee. 

The way managed IT services scales allows you to have access to this level of engineering. When multiple organizations contract with the same MSP, the price of all the contracts is pooled together and can pay multiple engineers’ salaries. 

How Do You Switch to Managed IT Services?

Now that you understand what managed IT services can do that internal IT can’t – give you proactive IT support, operational maturity, redundancy, and accessibility – you’re likely starting to think what it looks like to implement it. 

Realistically, there aren’t many steps to go through to sign a managed IT services contract. The incoming MSP will perform some sort of assessment to check the health of your IT environment’s security posture before beginning the onboarding process. 

As far as the transition, your new MSP will blanket your organization with software to monitor your hardware, software, network, infrastructure, etc. Additionally, they will train you and your users on how to request service when a problem arises. 

From there, they’ll regularly review your contract to ensure it’s continuing to align with your IT goals. 

For the most comprehensive overview of how to sign up for The KR Group’s services, check out our free e-guide.

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