Business Synergy: Internal IT + Managed IT Services Provider

There’s a valuable business tool that often gets overlooked. The IT department. You’re reading an IT blog on an IT company’s website, so you probably saw that coming. But seriously ask yourself, when’s the last time you saw your IT employee(s) as business drivers? It’s all too common for internal IT staff to be spending more time responding to password resets, server crashes, and printer issues as opposed to leading pro-active projects that can be a catalyst for business growth.  These housekeeping items are necessary, but each time a new internal ticket comes up, that cloud computing migration, disaster recovery test, or IT security project gets shoved to the backburner.  Yes, your IT team is in place to address end-user issues that pop up daily, but what if they could mean so much more to your business’s bottom line.

Here's How to Turn Your Reactive IT Team into a Money-Saving Business Force:

Hybridizing Your IT Department

A hybrid IT department combines the strengths of a company’s internal IT staff with the efficiency and specialized expertise of a Managed Services Provider (MSP). It’s a model of IT that more small and mid-size business leaders are implementing as they realize that technology can actually help their business become more agile, efficient and cost-effective.

Hybrid IT positions the business to meet its IT challenges without breaking stride, and allows internal staff to focus on larger business improvement projects, as well as draw on the MSP's expertise to complete those goals. Let’s take that cloud computing project for example. Whether your business has been considering the migration to Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud suite or you’re looking to move servers to the cloud, these migrations are only executed successfully with careful planning, the full knowledge of the product or cloud vendors available, and dedicated time and resources. From choosing the wrong subscription plan to lack of manpower, there are several factors that can cause a cloud migration to flounder. Partnering with the right MSP (one with cloud expertise and migration success stories) can ensure that a cloud migration is on scope, on time, and on budget.

Managed Service Providers

From Spiceworks latest State of IT Report, close to half of professionals surveyed expect budgets to increase in 2018. While this is great news for IT professionals, there will be added pressure to balance daily responsibilities with large critical business projects. Augmenting your internal IT staff with the consultants of an MSP, can empower your internal IT team - freeing them to complete those critical projects. By the end of 2018, those same IT professionals will be held accountable to prove the ROI on their increased budgets. It's critical that they have a certified, capable team in place to execute those initiatives starting on January 1, 2018. 

A hybrid IT model is not always a perfect match for everybody, but when the parties align, it can be a springboard for collaborative success and growth for an IT department. If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of partnering with an MSP and how to do so, check out our eBook.