The phrase “unprecedented” has rang true for the past two years. And the impact of those unprecedented events has left teams scrambling for time, headcount, and talent.
In 2021, the US experienced a 47.2% average turnover rate. Businesses were forced to reexamine ways to accomplish their business goals while combating a shifting workforce and shrinking budget. Enter: managed services.
Managed services are any task or request needed to help the business operate smoothly that can easily be outsourced for optimized efficiency. Managed services can range from technology updates and upgrades, to analytic insights, to marketing campaigns execution.
What Are The Benefits Of IT Support Services For A Business?
Everyone with a digital presence could benefit from working with a managed services provider (MSP).
MSPs are the Answer to Employee Turnover
MSPs provide a guaranteed source of technical or marketing support for companies to use without risking employee turnover. With a near 50% turnover rate last year, businesses should be looking to fill the gaps in their staff with alternate support channels.
Freeing Internal Resources
The most notable benefit is that outsourcing a project frees your internal team’s time to dedicate to other ongoing initiatives and larger projects. With today’s teams facing burnout across the board, MSPs give employers a solution to helping employee morale. Streamlining the work also helps businesses continue to meet the goals they set throughout the year.
Access to Experts
MSPs, such as Hero Digital, give your business 24/7 access to a team of certified digital experts. The team will provide support when a technical issue arises. It can always offer suggestions on optimizations and best practices too.
Decreased Cost
Oftentimes MSPs provide a financially beneficial solution to meet the demand for digital without increasing headcount and department cost.
Increased Efficiency
When your internal team can stay focused on your business goals and offload the more mundane tasks to an external team, your entire department can operate more efficiently. That increased efficiency means greater success for your business.
What Services Are Included In Managed IT Solutions?
Managed IT solutions include a wide range of services:
- Configuration
- User support
- Feature enhancement
- Critical security patches
- Urgent solutions
- Integrations with third party solutions
- Software upgrades and updates
- SLAs
- Analytics and reporting
- Campaign creation and implementation
- SEO keyword research
- Content authoring, optimization
- Landing page creation
- Existing page migration
- Google Tag Manager setup
- UAT testing
- Domain cut-over/site go-live
- Post go-live support
- Data model upgrades
- Workflow updates
- New inbound sources, data loads
- New outbound leads, syndication
- Exception handling and resolution
Our Managed Services clients typically take advantage of a combination of the services listed above. Our flexible hours model saves our clients money and helps our Managed Services team allocate hours based on higher priority initiatives.
What Makes A Good Managed Service Provider?
Competitive Pricing
If you want to get buy-in from your executive team, you’ll need to ensure the MSP you’ve selected has a competitive price. In a service-based model, like Managed Services, payment structure can vary greatly. Pay attention to the details and timeline of payment to better understand how the MSP will be charging your company for services rendered.
Relationship
One of the most important aspects of having a successful partnership is the mutual ability to form a positive working relationship. If your potential MSP isn’t thorough or doesn’t make an effort to truly understand your business, your company won’t see the same ROI as you would with an MSP who truly prioritizes you.
Internal Structure/Team Organization
Team organization is important for two reasons. First, it can help you better understand the MSP relationship and delivery process. And second, it will really show how your company will be prioritized.
Will you have a dedicated Customer Success Manager? Will you put a ticket in the system to be completed at a later date? Do you have a project lead you can talk to or do you have to know which individual will be responsible for each task? Will you have dedicated technical resources? Knowing how your new MSP will work with you is key to having an effective relationship.
If you plan to expand your partnership in the future, also consider other services and resources the MSP can provide – from expertise to full implementations.
Quality of Work
If you’re signing with a new partner, you want to know they’re reputable and capable of handling the caliber of work your company requires. Do they have a dedicated quality analyst as part of the service offering?
Scroll through their client testimonials and case studies to get an idea of what they’ve done and what companies they’ve worked with. You should also look through content they’ve created to understand their thought leadership and expertise.
Availability
When you’re looking for an external partner to help with your digital initiatives, you want to know you can reach your team in times of crisis. Talk with your potential MSPs to determine when they’ll be available and what the anticipated response time is for a critical issue.
Flexibility
Talk to your MSP about their service model and whether it’s rigid in nature or flexible. Specifically, you want to know if the MSP’s hours will be divided into projects or if they will allocate hours as needed based on the highest priority tasks. Having a more flexible model means time and money saved.
What Does Managed Services Look Like In Action?
Case Study: Brunswick
After partnering with Hero Digital for a successful global digital transformation, Brunswick wanted to double down on its digital investment and keep newly created portals optimized. Brunswick quickly recognized the need for guidance on program management, site deployment, and global release management.
Our Managed Services team of certified experts works 24/7 to provide Brunswick with around-the-clock support during critical security fixes and ongoing optimizations. The team has mastered a one-hour average response time, led deployment for global vendors, and continues to optimize for maximum efficiency.
Ready to help your team operate more efficiently? Contact our Managed Services experts here.
