The Advantage of a Managed Service Provider (MSP)
IT and Cybersecurity remain a focus for many small to medium Australian businesses. With the rapid pace of change, it’s virtually impossible for small businesses to keep up with every change and best practice to keep their business safe. Proactive monitoring, auditing and maintenance is critical to ensuring businesses remain secure.
This can’t be a set and forget approach, it needs to be cyclic with regular reviews. Managed Service Providers ensure your business is kept up to date with current best practices and guidelines. They are constantly reviewing your IT and security posture to ensure your business is secure and running as efficiently as possible. Below we will cover some of the benefits of collaborating with a Managed Service Provider such as FordhamIT.
Proactive Monitoring and Maintenance:
By employing a solution that monitors every aspect of your endpoints, MSPs are able to provide proactive monitoring and identify potential issues before the client even realises. By not only monitoring your endpoints but also servers, cloud services and identity providers, we are able to gain valuable insight and prevent downtime to your business.
Enhanced Cybersecurity:
As an MSP we manage the updates and patch management for your devices. This ensures that all updates and patches are completed to a schedule and can be confirmed for compliance. By keeping all Operating systems and software up to date, you can minimise the risk of any vulnerabilities in your environment.
MSP’s can also assist in providing the most current security solutions. By going beyond traditional measures, we can assist in providing more advanced protection. Solutions such as Endpoint Detection and Response, advanced business email compromise (BEC) mitigation and advanced forms of Multifactor authentication, just to name a few.
We are constantly researching and implementing the most up to date policies and solutions for our clients.
Budgeting and cost savings:
Managed Services can allow businesses to budget and know what to expect each month. Through a fixed fee retainer, we can provide businesses with unlimited support and proactive maintenance. This option allows us to collaborate and become part of the team. There are no time or cost pressures, if the client needs us for days at a time it’s no extra cost to them. It allows us to solve issues and implement solutions over time, in turn saving our clients’ money in the process.
While per hour and project-based works for some businesses, it doesn’t always get you the continued benefit of constant collaboration and improvement, and the constant monitoring and proactive maintenance. The costs for per hour work and projects can quickly exceed the cost of a monthly retainer.
We tailor our plants to suit our individual clients and the IT and Security needs their unique business requires.
By outsourcing their IT and Security businesses don’t need to hire in-house IT staff which can be cost prohibitive and expensive to maintain.
Specialised Expertise and a focus on core business:
MSPs specialise in the many different areas of IT and Security, their full-time focus is on how they can better protect and improve your business. You also get the wide breadth of experience and knowledge that comes from insights across many businesses. Not to mention the constant training and research into new technologies and processes.
This means that small and medium businesses don’t need to hire expansive and expensive teams internally. By outsourcing their IT and Security to an MSP, small business can focus on their core business and what they do best.
Strong rapport and improve staff efficiency:
Through our collaborative approach and efficient IT management, MSPs help contribute to the overall business efficiency and the productivity of employees. Through our processes, MSPs work to minimise downtime, keep your systems and endpoints running smoothly, and help your team with improved workflows.
At FordhamIT we provide your business with a dedicated account manager who is also your main technician, they build a strong relationship with you and your staff. We get to know your staff and business, meaning problems and issues are solved faster with expert knowledge of your business. You can expect us to become a familiar face at your office, even when everything is working well; We want your IT experience to be exceptional.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery:
Going beyond backups, businesses need to ensure they can recover quickly from any incident or downtime. IT disruptions can occur in any business large or small. The reasons can range from vendor outages to software and hardware issues onsite. Employing an MSP such as FordhamIT allows you to have us on call and ready to solve the issue as quickly and professionally as possible. You can put an end to long disruptions and lost company time.
We can provide you peace of mind, with backups for SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365 and Google workspace to backups for Endpoints, Servers and NAS devices. We ensure your business is protected.
Wrap Up
By working with a Managed Service Provider, you can ensure your business has the IT and Security infrastructure it needs to thrive. A great MSP will work with you and your staff, they should feel like an extension of your team. Having not only the resources to provide you great technical support, but the personal approach to ensure you and your team have a great understanding of your businesses IT and Security posture.
If you’re looking for an IT partner to support your business and team, please reach out to us. We would love to assist you in your IT journey.