Managed Services offers your company round-the-clock monitoring and remediation so that issues are detected and corrected before they become problems. It also offers a single and simple point-of-contact for any related needs that may arise. Whether your need is for a help desk, for system administration, or even to find root causes for the problems that may exist; a managed IT service can be a boon for business.

Using an IT Managed Services company is a low-cost proactive approach. You will pay an easy to budget flat monthly fee instead of spending large amounts for surprise repairs and accompanied downtime. Also, you won't be paying an hourly wage, plus expenses, plus benefits.
Managed Services can also help you out with installation of networking and management as well as security for your network and your IP telephony. The bottom line is this - you can hire as many people as you need to give you the service that your company has to have, and the costs will literally go through the roof.

On top of managing your business IT services, your managed services can also offer you software support as well as application installation, incident debriefing and analytical skills, probably lower cost hardware, and the list continues on ad infinitum.
An outsourced IT company gets paid when you have an issue. This does not mean they are managing your services or attempting to prevent problems before they take place. Only a Managed Services IT company will work to prevent your systems from degrading and to find issues before they take place, preventing down time and loss of income for you and your company.

Managed Services IT companies work as if they were part of your team, because they are. They are monitoring systems, outflow, data returns and keeping track of your Internet security as well as your services. The cost? A great deal less than you could expect to pay just one employee per year. Managed IT services are a solution that works. Cost-effective and working to keep you looking good to your customers!

We think such customer service is appalling. When it comes to computer systems, every minute a business has a problem it’s costing them profit and possibly customers also. Computer service companies must respond to their clients right away.

These days IT services can handle many issues remotely. They typically can take care of client reported issues within a couple hours, or worst case, within 24 hours. Even better, if the IT service sets-up the client with what’s referred to as Managed Services* then issues are typically caught and remedied by the IT company before they become problems. Of course hardware related issues must be dealt with onsite, so IT services typically get those repairs done within a day or two. If parts must be ordered, as for special or nonstandard parts, then the repair time might be extended to accommodate the lead time for acquiring those parts.

Whatever the case might be, the IT service company should respond right away when contacted. Businesses should expect and demand service within a reasonable timeframe. If there’s a valid reason for a service delay that reason should be explained and coordinated with the client. Typically there are alternatives or workarounds that should be explored and offered to the client.

The bottom line is that if a service company is not responding within reasonable timeframes, similar those described above, they should be fired and another service provider sought. There are plenty of quality IT service companies out there. Check with friends or business acquaintances for referrals.

*With Managed Services a small piece of software is installed on each server and workstation that monitors system health around the clock. If and when an anomaly or fault is detected it is reported immediately to the IT service company. The IT service has remote access to the systems and can remedy the situation usually before the issue is detected by users.

That scenario is always a possibility.  But it doesn’t have to be. Reliability can easily and inexpensively be added to computer systems.  The results can be the as good as the user merely notified of a fault when it occurs but they keep on working as if nothing happened, or worst case they can be back to work typically within 30 minutes.

To make computer systems insensitive to faults, redundancy or strategic preventative measures can be added.  What’s meant by “redundancy” is that additional copies of certain components can be added so that if one copy of a component fails the other copy automatically takes over.  Since the components that fail most often in computers are the power supply and the hard drive, adding redundant copies of those to a computer assures the computer will keep running when one fails.

Preventative measures can be added to protect from other computer system threats. In that way such threats like power outages and malware can be avoided.  Failures due to power outages can be prevented by adding battery backup units called uninterruptible power supplies or UPS for short.  Malicious software, i.e., viruses and spyware, can damage Windows.  Internet security software can shield computers from malware, but in practice are not foolproof.  There are additional measures that can assure recovery.  They are software tools that prohibit execution of malware or maintain a know-good configuration.

In conclusion, there’s no reason risk loss of productivity due to computer frailties.  Instead, add inexpensive reliability features and move forward with conscious confidence.