With managed services, you get expert professional help to handle all your IT challenges. The best MSPs go beyond resolving IT crises to provide services that allow your business to grow.
Managed Services Provider Best Practices
Make sure your managed services provider follows these best practices. If they do, you’ll receive services that meet your current needs and adapt as your needs change.
• Focus on root causes
Managed services shouldn’t be about solving problems. While you may be interested in hiring a managed services provider because your own team is having difficulty delivering the level of IT services you need, you should get more from the MSP than simply problem fixing. Your MSP should be focused on the root causes of the problems you experience and deliver a strategic solution that prevents problems from occurring in the future rather than just resolving them as they occur.
• Focus on your needs
Periodic meetings with your MSP let you share information about business changes that impact your IT requirements. You should have periodic meetings scheduled with the MSP to inform them of upcoming changes to the business that will impact the level of IT service required, such as opening a new office. You should also talk with the MSP about changes in business strategy that may require changes in IT strategy. Give the MSP enough notice to plan to make IT changes and align the delivered service to the new requirements.
• Focus on your results
The periodic meetings with your MSP should look backward as well as forwards. In addition to discussing what you need in the future, those meetings should look at what’s been done in the past. The MSP should want to know how well what they’re doing meets your needs and what they need to do better. It’s a good idea for you to do a little prep before your meetings with your MSP so you can think about how their services mesh with your business challenges and where you think your technology still needs improvement.
• Focus on security
The information security deliverables defined in your contract shouldn’t be the maximum your MSP does with respect to security; they should be the minimum. Security risks change over time and as your IT architecture evolves, and you need your MSP to always make security a priority.
• Share knowledge with your team
Because it’s still your IT, even though it’s being managed for you, it’s important that your MSP shares knowledge with your team. You should understand the high level rationale for the strategy they implement, and they should be able to provide you enough detail for you to resume managing your own IT if you decide not to renew the contract.
VAST’s breadth and depth of technical knowledge allows us to deliver managed services that handle every aspect of IT operations and management. We combine a strategic focus with tactical skills to deliver services at a high quality level. Contact us to learn how managed services from VAST empowers your technology on behalf of your business.
