Top 6 Things to Look for in an IT Managed Service Provider

Businesses today are facing challenges from multiple fronts – regulatory concerns, macro forces, changing business landscapes, and even internal. And in a business environment such as today where there is mounting dependence on technology, the need for a secure, up to date and optimized infrastructure is uncompromisable. This is the role of an efficient Managed Service Provider. Managed Services is a growing global trend expected to grow to a market of US $229 billion in 2020. And whilst there may be many Managed Service Providers (MSP), we’ve shortlisted 6 aspects to look into before bringing an MSP on board, to maximize your return on investment.

Desired Support Coverage and 24*7 Availability

Your Managed Service Provider is going to be an extended arm of your internal IT team. So, team availability and 24×7 support coverage are key areas to look out for. While this is a common given amongst all MSP’s, it’s important to note:

• What is MSP’s stipulated response time?
• What is the average issue resolve time?
• How flexible is on-site support?
• What is the uptime commitment from the MSP?
• Is there any cap on the number of support calls or on-site support?
• What is the process to raise a support concern?

Every company has different processes and varied average response time. Evaluate what works best for You. And, don’t shy away from asking for documents that support their claim. What sets Embee apart from its counterparts is its quick response time, unlimited customer support, and its flexibility to raise support tickets from multiple devices including a smartphone. This agility ensures you’re covered 24*7*365.

Transparency and Auditable

Outsourcing the management of your infrastructure is risky. But when the processes are transparent and auditable, there is a sense of control you exercise. Embee uses ITSM Technology-enabling its customers to monitor the status of the support tickets raised, actions taken by our solution architects, backup and monitoring reports, security alerts, and much more. They can monitor anything, everything, anywhere, anytime, and on any device including smartphones.

Value Added Consulting and Flexible Services

An ideal MSP is one who is always abreast of the latest technology innovations and ensures you’re ahead of the curve too, provides a wide range of services including Non-Cloud and Cloud Services, one who provides guaranteed Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) and has semi-flexible service contracts. Offering various services ensures you’re engaged with a single partner versus working with multiple MSP’s. An SLA protects your business objective and ensures the MSP performs accordingly. And a flexible service contract helps to add and move services you realize you may not need once engaged without much hassle.

Monitoring

A combination of automated tracking and human expertise is the best way to make sure that critical threats are detected before they can cause any harm. Ask your managed service company to tell you about their monitoring structures, how they are alerted, how they make certain that each warning is addressed, what their internal processes are. The agility with which they respond is a key criterion to look out for.

Expertise, Experience, and Capabilities

Look out for MSP’s which are backed with a strong, skilled team, preferably same – industry experience, alternately, experience across organization demographies to address a varied range of technical concerns for small and medium-sized organizations to large businesses, have a reputed client portfolio, have a high success rate on completed on time-on budget projects. Don’t forget to hear from them on the projects they have worked on and gauge the capabilities of the team.

Prioritizes You

Opt for an MSP who prioritizes your success and growth, who actively engages in fortnightly or monthly review calls, provides periodic standard and custom reports of your infrastructure and its performance, security compliance, etc. A Managed Service Provider is every organization’s support system. They’re expected to ensure every customer’s infrastructure is highly secure, detect any intrusion and minimize its impact on business, provide 24x7x365 support, ensure the software’s are up to date, optimize the IT environment and minimize IT costs. Embee has helped over 100 organizations countrywide to achieve this and more. Get in touch to know more.