Member Article

Choosing the right MSP for your business

Managed services involves working with a partner who handles some, or all, of your IT needs. You retain control, deciding which elements are handled externally and which are managed in-house, creating a cost-effective, high-productivity approach to getting the most out of your IT infrastructure.

Gartner estimate nearly half of organisations plan to increase their use of managed services, eager to reap the benefits of cost reduction and increased reliability of the network and its applications. Other advantages include the ability to quickly and easily integrate new technologies and applications such as unified communications, and reducing pressure on the in-house team, leaving them free to concentrate on strategic priorities.

Here are some key points to consider when identifying the right MSP.

PA resized for team shotsInfrastructure – your MSP should control its own infrastructure, with continuous investment in super-fast, high capacity communications and ISO27001-certified data centres with business continuity and workspace recovery facilities. Partners without their own infrastructure who rely on platforms such as Microsoft’s Azure or Google Cloud are merely acting as brokers and I would worry about where that would leave clients if those players decide to drop the MSP as a reseller.

Flexibility – can the MSP tailor a solution specific to your needs? They should be able to deliver a total end to end service, allowing you to choose from a range of support elements and create a framework that suits your business and can flex alongside it. Your MSP should become your IT conscience, monitoring performance, offering insight and bringing new ideas to the table to boost performance and ROI.

Expertise – do they have the right range and depth of expertise across a variety of sectors, and at a strategic level? Look for high calibre, industry-certified experts in a cross-section of technical disciplines from consultants through to engineers. It makes no sense to try to replicate decades of technical and industry knowledge in-house, when you can work in partnership with someone who already bears the cost of maintaining a high level knowledge base.

Relationships – look for a partner with a vendor agnostic approach. Your MSP should be able to tailor the right solution created from a range of proven hardware, software, systems and applications from industry leaders. Commitment to multi-vendor accountability is essential. When issues arise, you do not want a situation where individual vendors argue about where the fault lies, while the MSP stands back.

Accountability – be clear about what you need and expect from your MSP. They should offer service level agreements that start at the application layer and go upwards, covering both single and multiple platforms, all tuned to your business needs. They should also have the confidence to commit to financial penalties for non-delivery. Reputation – research the MSP’s reputation in the market. Are they a long-established name with a good track record in your sector? Check out the number of managed service clients they have, and take the time to follow up on client references and visits – seeing is believing.

Costs – go through the fine detail of proposed costs so you understand exactly what you are committing to. You should be able to rely on predictable costs and no need for a big investment if you need to scale up.

MSPs come in all shapes and sizes, and with varying abilities to do the job. The best partners are flexible and honest, will have a truly expert team in place and demonstrate the ability to understand your priorities and support your growth. Making sure those and other factors are in place will give you the confidence to make the right choice for your business.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by ITPS Ltd .