Eight Benefits of Co-managed IT Support

by Jon Lober | NOC Technology

The best of both worlds.

Growth is as exciting as it is overwhelming for a small business—unless you are the IT person responsible for keeping up with all of that growth. Then it is just overwhelming.

As order numbers rise and the staff expands, so do the number of helpdesk tickets, outdated servers, and overwhelmed networks. Laptops proliferate and wander beyond the secure confines of the office onto public and home networks. A single capable IT person or small department might be able gracefully handle the occasional late-night upgrade, but large projects, sustained growth, or back-to-back crises can push even the most patient technician over the edge.

Even without significant business growth, many small IT departments are being overwhelmed by the rising tide of cybercrime plaguing the SMB sector. Since small businesses have a failure rate of 60% within 6 months of a data breach, the viability of most SMEs increasingly rests not only in the hands of executive leadership, but also the IT department. Expecting a do-it-all IT employee or understaffed IT department to implement a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is like asking a family doctor to perform open heart surgery: maybe they pull it off, but neither the doctor nor the patient like their odds.

Once a management team recognizes the critical need for increased IT support, they face a difficult decision. They often do not want to outsource all of their IT support and lose the trustworthy team that has guided them this far. Inside knowledge, trust, and institutional memory have real value to most small businesses. On the other hand, they do not want to hire additional staff– since a single technician can easily represent another $70,000+ in annual expense.

Fortunately, there is a middle way in these situations. Co-managed it support with a managed service provider (MSP) can provide the best of both worlds: vastly increased expertise and capacity for lower cost than an additional employee.

Eight benefits of a co-managed IT arrangement.

Small businesses can outsource a wide variety of IT services through a co-management arrangement with an MSP. Some businesses may only need only occasional helpdesk support, while others prefer their IT service provider to manage most of their tech needs. Each contract can be tailored to the specific needs of an individual business.

1. Lower cost than single employee.

Although the cost of a co-managed contract with an outsourced IT company can vary widely (depending on the number of employees retained and extent of services required by a client business), the average co-managed contract falls under the cost of a new IT employee.
2. Expanded expertise.

When a business enters a co-management agreement with a high-quality MSP, it essentially contracts an entire team of experts to support their business. After cost savings, this is often the most compelling reason for a business to pursue a co-managed IT solution. The world’s most knowledgeable IT technician would be unable to compete with the combined experience and expertise of even a lackluster MSP.
3. Improved cybersecurity and compliance.

Since cybersecurity and compliance are specialized arenas, most small businesses lack in-house expertise. To address this issue, full-service MSPs often employee an expert that advises clients how to remain in compliance in their specific market. Any MSP advertising cybersecurity services should have at least one expert, if not an entire team, dedicated to proactive cybersecurity.
4. External perspective.

Like an outside consultant that provides a fresh, unclouded perspective of reality in your business, a co-management partner can provide an unbiased view of your IT system. A high-quality MSP is constantly researching the market and providing support to a wide variety of businesses. SMBs can leverage their IT partner’s experience and knowledge to make strategic investments in their infrastructure that give them a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
5. Improved working conditions for IT staff.

Since a co-managed IT support contract could include a solitary service or an expansive suite of services, the role of existing IT staff may change dramatically or very little. If an MSP provides limited support, staff will continue to execute their normal responsibilities albeit with far lighter burdens. If support is more extensive, an in-house IT person may shift their role from “default support person” to “IT liaison”—managing their business’s relationship with an MSP and providing strategic direction for its services.
6. Project support.

A business puts itself at risk when it perpetually postpones critical upgrades. As servers, computers, and networks slow to a crawl, the collective loss of productivity provoked by this situation exacts a high cost each day that the slowdown passes without remedy. If a critical server or computer crashes completely, the cost of lost data, lost business, and downtime can be dangerously high. Co-managed support can not only implement proactive upgrades to existing infrastructure, but carry out specialized projects that increase the capacity of the entire business.
7. Helpdesk support.

Depending on a client’s preferences, an MSP can assume all helpdesk responsibilities or provide support only in limited circumstances: after regular business hours or in periods of high demand (for example if the IT service ticket backlog reaches a certain threshold).
8. Opportunity to bundle services.

A full-service MSP can often provide a wide variety of services for a single monthly cost. In our case, NOC Technology can bundle nearly all of our fully-managed and co-managed clients’ IT services in a single, stable monthly cost: internet service, VoIP phone systems, helpdesk support, cloud services, data storage, hardware leases, software licenses, project implementation, IT policy and compliance services, cybersecurity (implementation, monitoring, and training), and more.

If you think that co-management might be a good fit for your business, check out our IT co-management guide for decision makers to learn about three criteria for a successful co-management arrangement and four indicators that it might be time to seek support.

IT Co-management Guide

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