What Does a Managed Service Provider Do?

Managed services are the practice of outsourcing the responsibility of maintaining and anticipating the need for a range of processes and functions, with the aim of improving operations and reducing budget expenditures. Small business owners often ask me what a managed service provider (MSP) does. The answer is that we help ensure that your systems run smoothly, stay secure and up to date, and address day-to-day technical issues so you can stay focused on your core business.

Managed IT

service providers can reduce internal overhead, increase IT efficiency, and improve uptime management.

A company may consider leveraging managed services experts to ensure greater predictability of IT costs in the midst of uncertain requirements. Managed service providers differ from traditional outsourcing companies in that when a company outsources an IT department or function, the outsourcing company chooses those employees or replaces them with an approximately equivalent number of employees elsewhere. A managed service provider often offers its service offering under an SLA, a contractual agreement between the MSP and its customer. Common services may include equipment monitoring and maintenance, IT system management, remote monitoring and server management, network monitoring, and other support services.

Managed service providers structure their businesses to offer technology services cheaper than it would cost a company to do it on its own, with a higher level of quality and with more flexibility and scalability. Managed service providers hire IT professionals with a wide variety of experience levels and skill sets, although individual companies may focus on specific industries or technologies. Depending on future requirements and the speed of maturity of your organization's IT, the managed service can be expanded to address these scenarios. Recently, I provided a managed service to a large energy company that found the service to be seamless and significantly improved satisfaction for end users and IT support staff around the world.

Today, IT managers are under significant pressure to meet the company's performance, operational expectations, and security needs while trying to keep costs low. Many modern managed service providers take a more proactive approach to maintenance and management, which can include patch management and predictive maintenance. Managed IT services allow organizations to outsource IT tasks to a provider as contracted or subscription services. The managed service provider is responsible for the functionality of the service or equipment, managed according to a service level agreement (SLA).