Every business intends to grow, do right by their clients, and ensure that they provide value to the world. No business sets out to struggle to compete, experience dysfunction, or curate an ineffective and inhospitable working atmosphere. However, these issues can slowly gestate over time if the root causes aren’t addressed, even if the symptoms are attended to.
Only 70% of businesses (with employees) survive their second year. That may seem like a large number, but that means a 30% failure rate is commonplace. For this reason, it’s essential for companies to understand how to structurally develop in order to give themselves the strongest roots.
There are many services businesses use to structure their workflow and productivity, and the formatting for this is often provided by Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and IT Companies.
Unfortunately, not all of these services are alike, and not all of them are appropriate for your firm. As businesses of all kinds rely on technological competence more than ever, overpaying for a less-than-capable service is a situation that can corrupt your brand’s chances before it even gets started.
Security
Security is absolutely essential. According to CloudRadar, there is a hacking attempt made every 39 seconds. It not only helps defend your clients from having their data breached, but it protects your trade secrets, your staff, and your competitiveness.
It also ensures that your systems work as intended, and helps you avoid unnecessary downtime or the need for disaster recovery measures.
An MSP should understand exactly what your business needs to stay secure, including VPN provisions, server security, recommendations for staff access and training. Your MSP should be proactive, preventive and responsive. This way, firewall protection, PC monitoring and data backup come as standard.
Integrations
There’s almost no point in managing a network if it hinders the productive workflow of your staff. Your network security and service provisions should be seamless and integrated into your workflow at large.
From VoIP communication systems to ensuring your processes are compatible and run alongside one another, to making sure that security onboarding (such as VPN access) are relatively pain-free and protected against human error, ensuring your integrations are carefully calibrated helps you find a thorough result going forward.
Speed
Productivity depends upon more than just getting your employees to work more hours. It’s important to make sure their digital workflow is easy to access, that they can work through security requirements easily without having to pause their work.
It’s also important to ensure that downtime is minimized or prevented entirely, even when updating your network. A competent MSP plans around you, and your productive ambitions, so that your employees are always granted the capabilities they need going forward.
Customer Service
Is your MSP available, responsive, and willing to help? Do they react to problems quickly, or do you have to wait in a queue? Are you spoken to by a human, or do you have to go through endless AI chatbots or answering machine messages to find assistance?
When you need your concerns and questions addressed, the last thing you need is to be waiting on the line. If you feel dissatisfied with your current provider, it may be worth finding a new IT company that knows what it means to prioritize their clients.
In conclusion, it’s clear that using a managed service provider is no-brainer. That said, learning to discern the balance between customer service, speed, integrative quality and network security is essential. You deserve a service that delivers on all fronts, as it could very much determine the difference between success and failure.