Can managed services solve your IT problem? Chances are, it can: managed services are available to help you address almost any IT need. The scope of managed IT services available includes:

Infrastructure support

Designing, provisioning, monitoring, and supporting all your IT equipment is a time-consuming effort. Desktops, servers, storage, and networks all require ongoing monitoring and maintenance. Managed services provide the routine care plus problem resolutions services needed to keep core infrastructure functioning.

Information security

Every business holds both customer data and intellectual property that’s valuable outside the business. Protecting data effectively requires staying up to date with using a wide range of tools including antivirus, firewalls, data loss prevention software, and encryption to keep data secure. Managed services help you design an effective information security strategy and implement, configure, and support the tools that keep you protected.

Desktop support

Unlike your data center staff, your business folks aren’t IT specialists, and they need ongoing support to use their desktop applications. Managed services can address their needs, including user management, patch management, and help desk services.

Backups and disaster recovery

The burden of day-to-day support can prevent in-house IT teams from focusing on issues like effective backups and disaster recovery solutions. Managed services can make sure your backup process is efficient, in terms of time and storage required. Managed services can also make sure your disaster recovery process is able to take those backups and get your business operational again after a disaster shuts down your primary data center.

Cloud support

Cloud has made all kinds of technology more available and less expensive, but using the cloud requires both an underlying strategy and ongoing monitoring and support. In house IT teams lack familiarity with the cloud’s new way of doing things. Use managed cloud to ensure your cloud provides the services and security your business needs.

Storage management

Storing data effectively requires making multiple choices about storage technology and allocating the space available, as well as maintaining the equipment and dealing with any failures. Managed services can take care of all these issues for you.

Why are managed services so effective?

Managed services are effective because they provide you with a team of experts who can focus on your technology while your own team focuses on your business. Managed services teams develop expertise and insight from working with multiple clients, giving them deep exposure to technology, its uses, and the potential problems it may develop. They know the best practices and design patterns that support effective use of the selected tools and technologies, along with workarounds and quick-fixes that get you going until permanent solutions are in place.

Ready to learn more about managed services?

Download our guide or contact us to learn about how managed services from CCS Technology Group can help your business solve your technology problems.

Additional Managed Services Resources

Overcome the Challenges of Hybrid IT With Managed Services

5 Tips for Getting the Best Results from a Managed Services Provider

There are many things to think through when you choose a managed services provider, and hopefully you select a provider that’s a good fit for your business. But don’t stop thinking about your managed services provider once you sign the contract. Think through how you’ll work with the provider so they can succeed in delivering services that help your business succeed.

1. Make sure you get the right services from the right provider

There are two ways to think about this. The right services are the services you need to address your business’s IT problems, whether it’s help with your network, cloud, desktop support, or security. You want to make sure you get the services you need from a provider that’s got the skills and experience to deliver them effectively. If your provider doesn’t have a background in a technology or service you need, you’ll be better off contracting with a second provider who does have that expertise, even if it means you add complexity to managing your providers.

2. Get clear about service delivery

It isn’t likely you’ll completely eliminate your internal IT team, so carefully define the boundaries around the work you’ll do yourself and the work you want the managed services provider to handle. If the contract didn’t define a detailed set of deliverables, have a meeting when the contract starts to spell out your expectations and address concerns. Along with this, carefully define the communications process so both you and the provider know how new requests will be handled and how you’ll work to resolve any problems.

3. Set metrics

You should have a plan for how you’ll evaluate the effectiveness of your managed services arrangement. Define metrics before the contract starts, and be sure to let the provider know. That way they can focus their efforts on the concerns that really matter to you. Don’t wait until the end of the contract to let the provider know if they aren’t measuring up. Do a periodic assessment and bring your concerns to them when there’s still time to make changes and get a positive result.

4. Treat the managed services provider as a member of your team

The more the provider knows about your business, the better they’ll be able to tailor the services they deliver to your business needs. While you may not want to give them all the details, if you give the provider information about your business problems and strategies, they’ll be able to give you better support that helps you meet long-term goals.

5. Let the provider do their job

Pay attention to what the provider delivers, but let them figure out how they want to provide the service. Managed services providers support many businesses, and they’ve most likely found a way of working that works for them as well as the clients they support. As long as they’re not doing something illegal, unethical, or disruptive to your business, you should focus on their results and not how they’re getting them.

CCS Technology Group is dedicated to providing top quality managed services to our clients. Contact us to learn how our team can help solve your business information technology challenges.

Additional Resources

6 Big Benefits from Using Managed Services

How Managed Services Make the Difference

As the world has become more complex, there’s an increased emphasis on specialization. Businesses rely on outside firms to provide the functions that aren’t part of their core business. For many organizations that aren’t in the information technology industry themselves, IT is too complicated to successfully handle with an internal team. Relying on a managed services provider solves their IT problems and provides many business benefits.

Top Business Benefits from Using a Managed IT Services Provider

The chief benefit of working with a managed services provider is more reliable IT. This comes in different ways, including a proactive approach to maintenance and problem solving, better technology selection, and improved monitoring and backup and recovery procedures. Other benefits from working with a managed services provider include:

1. Improved information security

The threats to information security are constantly evolving. Managed services providers are more able to keep current with threats and solutions and evaluate their impact on your technology. Managed services providers also implement effective patch management strategies to ensure your systems remain protected against all known threats.

2. Effective use of new technology

Cutting-edge IT solutions become obsolete rapidly. It’s difficult for internal IT teams to get up to speed on new technology and ensure it’s implemented in a cost-effective way. Managed services providers develop expertise in new technology through close vendor relationships as well as their experience working with multiple clients. This makes managed services providers an ideal choice for introducing unfamiliar technology, such as cloud, into the data center.

3. Cost-effective IT expertise

Hiring and retaining experienced IT personnel is difficult for non-IT firms. As technology changes, it’s difficult to provide training to help staff upgrade their skills. Working with a managed services provider is a cost-effective way to access IT talent with experience and expertise in the latest technology.

4. Focus your IT team on business value

By using a managed services provider to handle your routine IT support and maintenance, your own internal IT staff are freed up to focus on strategic work. They can leverage their IT knowledge and combine it with their insight into your unique business needs and opportunities to identify ways to apply technology to strategic projects that truly add value to the business.

5. Manageable spending

Technology costs are highly variable, but a contract with a managed services provider makes that portion of your technology spending highly predictable.

6. 24×7 support

It’s a 24×7 world, and technology support needs to be 24×7 too. Managed services providers are available around the clock to address IT problems as soon as they occur.

CCS Technology Group provides managed services to meet the needs of your entire technology infrastructure, whether on premises or in the cloud. Contact us to learn how to get the benefits of managed IT services working for your business.

“CCS has definitely helped with increasing . . . its partnership with my internal business.”

– Dipesh Shah
Chief Information Officer, Inventrust Properties

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