Managed Service Provider
A managed service provider (MSP) offers the service of being responsible for the technology and data infrastructure at a business. An MSP is the equivalent of in-house IT outsourced. They will proactively provide a defined set of IT services for a fixed monthly fee.
Moving from Break-fix to Proactive Management
The other option is to wait until something breaks and then call to have it fixed. The break-fix model is flawed in its basic premise that nothing will go wrong. But there is also the mistaken idea that it will somehow cost less for business to be down an undefined number of hours or days.
As an industry, managed services is growing. Research firm MarketsandMarkets says,
The managed services market is estimated to grow from USD 145.33 Billion in 2016 to USD 242.45 Billion by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.8% during the forecast period. The major forces driving the managed services market include flexibility to match custom requirements, continuous upsurge in dependency over heterogeneous networks, and persistent rise in the complexity of technological solutions.
Most business owners recognize that technology is getting more complex and that having a managed service provider will help maintain fixed cost and reliable business continuity.
Alliant Manages SMB’s
As an MSP, Alliant reliably manages over 50 small to medium sized businesses in a variety of industries, including legal, medical, veterinary, finance, accounting, construction, manufacturing, restaurant and education.
Our minimum sized ideal client is 1 server and 5 workstations, while the maximum could be set at 10 servers and 100 workstations, although there is no real maximum. In fact, larger companies are generally able to do a better job at keeping their network fully serviced.
Two Service Levels
Alliant provides two levels of service: Basic Care and Complete Care. (Call us and we’ll gladly email you a matrix that spells out the differences between those two.) Basic Care has limitations as to response time (4 hours or less) and the scope of what it includes. It’s more… basic! The hourly service rate is also higher. Complete care includes a 1 hour or less response time on pretty much all kinds of services offered. The “kitchen sink” approach, more or less, as long as it is related to the network.
Many Services Provided
Specific managed services provided by Alliant include desktop and server management, applications management, and remote help desk as the general starting point. Security options include firewall management, backup/disaster recovery management, storage, cloud backup, and email management. Remote connectivity and virtual desktops can also be provided as well as WiFi and POS solutions.
Benefiting Your Business
How will a managed service provider benefit your business? Because of the fixed monthly cost there is a predictability in business cost which is beneficial to budgeting and planning. The unexpected breakdown that requires an immediate fix can be costly from the standpoint of the urgency and extensiveness of the solution. Nor does it help that business is down until the network is back up. Heavy dependence on the infrastructure of digital data and access to critical applications demands a robust plan for business continuity. Alliant helps by a cost-effective analysis of unique business needs and the ongoing support through remote monitoring.
Free Network Analysis
Alliant will perform a free network analysis of your current infrastructure to help you determine if now is the right time to engage in managed services and benefit from being proactive in outsourcing this critical business need. Call Alliant now at (626) 461-1300.
