Cutting Costs Doesn’t Mean Sacrificing Support

If you’re trying to minimize your operating costs to improve your budget, it is important to keep in mind that sacrifice isn’t your only option. Instead, you also have the option of streamlining and minimizing some of your larger expenses by enlisting a managed services provider and the more sustainable business model we adhere to.

What follows are a few ways that support costs can inflate, and how recruiting an MSP can provide superior services at a reduced cost.

How Support Costs Inflate

There are various reasons that acquiring support for your technology can quickly become an expensive investment:

• Your technology may be inherently expensive to repair, or if need be, to replace.
• Repair fees factor in additional fees and travel costs, on top of the charge for the actual service.
• Repair services tend to only focus on solving the immediate problem, with no consideration for the future. This leaves the possibility of the issue recurring, or even for the fix to create more problems in the future—either of which would often require another billable visit from the provider.
• The responsibility ultimately falls to you to call in a technician to fix any issues that do pop up and schedule a time for them to come in, potentially leading to significant downtime and the lost revenue that comes with it. This lost revenue can be considered an additional cost and therefore adds to the total bill you’re stuck with.
• These expenses are effectively impossible to accurately plan for, considering how variable each support bill will be. As a result, it is very easy to over-budget or under-budget for your annual IT support needs.

This is all the case if you were to rely on the more “traditional” method of obtaining technical support, rather than subscribing to an MSP’s services. Let’s go over how the MSP is far-and-away going to provide better value for your investment:

How an MSP Prevents Cost Inflation

There are various ways that the MSP eliminates the challenges that the traditional provider’s services present.

• In addition to remaining up-to-speed on best practices regarding repair and remediation, an MSP will have formed business relationships with a variety of vendors who offer them better prices for the technology you need.
• Rather than requiring a member of their staff to travel to your location, your MSP will utilize remote access tools to diagnose and mitigate everything that doesn’t require hands-on intervention, resolving issues more quickly. Any additional travel time and associated costs included in the agreement are also covered by the monthly fee.
• When needed, the MSP goes beyond fixing the symptoms of a problem. Instead, they’ll use their access and monitoring tools to identify the source of the issue and resolve that, helping reduce the likelihood of further action being needed.
• Using their toolkit, an MSP is also capable of monitoring your network and systems for errors, inconsistencies, and other signs of a problem… even identifying potential, not-yet-realized issues. As a result, they can proactively prevent obstacles from interrupting your workflows.
• As an MSP operates similarly to a subscription service, budgeting becomes particularly simple as your financial commitment is made much more predictable. This also makes it simple to adjust your agreement to meet your needs, as your fee is simply adjusted to match whatever your business requires.

To learn more about what a managed service provider can do to benefit your business and its operations, reach out to Washington Works! Give us a call at 301-571-5040.