What are the best traits of a managed service provider. Jit Goel, XCEL Corp Jit Goel

What to Look For in a Managed Services Provider?

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Managed Services have brought amazing efficiency and productivity to organizations with limited IT resources. When companies grow, so do their IT requirements. In companies whose core competency is not IT, Managed Service Providers provide offer end to end IT services from managing hardware, updating the software, facilitating new implementations and more. There are several divisions to managed services, some of the major sections are:

Device Management:

This includes managing hardware, networking, servers and workstations. Some MSPs (Managed Service Providers) also term device management as hardware management.

Application Management:

Managing, maintaining, and updating applications. Implementations of new software and also providing, awareness and training related to new implementations are part of this division.

Vendor Management:

A managed services provider would not be able to provide all the services, technology, and hardware required for every organization. In some cases, MSPs would have to coordinate with technology providers for troubleshooting, incident resolution, and account management.

Back-end support:

The MSP should provide unbridled support for end users to enable them in performing basic activities including changing passwords, Login help, internal troubleshooting, tracking, and incident reporting.

While these are the roles of the Managed Services Provider, an organization can either choose one of the services or all depending on the requirement. We have also explained the importance of a Managed Services Provider and why should organizations work with a managed service provider in our previous blog, here.

Advantages

Managed Services provide a wide range of benefits including, helping your organization to become better aligned with your business goals, focus on their core competencies, get constant support for IT, helps you to plan ahead for your IT requirements, and most importantly become your organization’s dedicated IT department.

The advantages of Managed Services however are highly dependent on the service provider. During interaction with our potential clients, we understood that many organizations do understand how Managed Services benefit their organization but however need help in choosing a MSP.

Here are 5 major aspects which would help you choose the right MSP for your organization.

1. Technology:

The major need for hiring a Managed Services Provider is to utilize technology to the maximum. So, the technical capability of your MSP should be the primary characteristic. Only a MSP who is technically fully equipped will be able to handle the challenges that your organization faces. They should be experts in virtual infrastructure, collocation handling, user end computing, storage management, application management among several others. It is also important for the organization to get a Service Level Agreement to ensure they are capable of providing what they claim to.

2. Customization:

Every organization has its own challenges. A MSP cannot provide a solution that is one fits all approach. They have to first analyze your organization’s challenges and your business goals and device a strategy that would enable to organization with the technology to achieve established business goals. Customization ability is an important aspect of a MSP while you are making a choice.

3. Monitoring:

Monitoring is one of the basic expectations from a MSP. The service provider should be able to promptly monitor the changes and provide solutions to remove down times. MSPs working with numerous companies on many occasions do not have the man power to monitor all the systems they are working with. So it is good for organizations to look for a MSP who has a combination of automated monitoring followed by a manual response. Effective monitoring helps MSPs and the organization to spot bugs on time and prevent problems before it creates a massive impact disrupting your organization.

4. Vendor Management:

It is natural human behavior to point fingers at others during a time of crisis. To prevent such occurrences, the MSP should be the single point of contact for all the IT requirements for the organization. When you have a technical crisis, this would ensure that the MSP is in full control to coordinate with the different technology providers to resolve the crisis promptly. Some MSPs would not take ownership of other technology providers because of the hassle and that in turn is faced by the organization. Hence, it is important to look for a MSP who takes up complete accountability being the single point of contact.

5. Support:

Many MSPs in the United States work in normal office hours and are not responsible for the glitches that may occur during off office hours. In some organizations, your IT would be very important for you to provide what your customers require. Such organizations cannot afford to have downtime during late nights as it would have very bad impression especially with their new customers. Look for organizations which provide 24*7 support and are ready to resolve any crisis that may arise immediately irrespective of time.

Apart from these major requirements, there are also other aspects you should pay attention to while choosing a Managed Service Provider. Some of them are their staff and capability, IT budgeting, proactive maintenance, and disaster recovery. It is quite easy to find MSPs who would offer their services but it is very difficult to find one who suits your organization’s requirements.

If you are looking for a Managed Services Provider, then we could help you with your IT. At XCEL Corp, we provide complete turn-key IT managed services for all kinds of organizations from SMBs to large enterprises. We follow unique best practices that are acclaimed world-wide we ensure that your organization will always stay ahead of competition in IT at affordable costs.

To make XCEL Corp your Managed Services Provider, call us now!

Author: Jit Goel ( President/CEO )



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