What is a Managed Service Provider?
Managed Service Provider is a kind of service provider. These are firms which provide managed services for network, servers, and various applications. They are generally hired by IT companies to maintain the availability of their technologies in the IT environment. These services provided by these service providers are flexible and timely. In fact, they handle everything on behalf of the client.
Managed Service Provider plays an important role in disaster recovery. In case of any disaster, the MSP plays an integral role in helping his client business. The managed service providers arrange for the execution of plans and the deployment of resources in a planned manner. It also provides technical support services to its customers in managing their network and servers. There are many advantages of employing the services of an MSP. First of all, it helps the client in securing the crucial information and data of his organization.
A lot of factors are responsible for the increase in demand of the outsourced professionals such as, globalization, software development, and highly skilled human resources. In addition to this, the companies can now afford to hire efficient professionals who possess the knowledge, skills and expertise of an MSP. Outsourcing works best for small, medium, or large businesses that cannot afford to invest in the training of their own in-house technicians and staff. Moreover, the managed service providers can provide timely technical support to their customers, which means that they are not required to spend more time on answering phone calls.
Today, there are numerous benefits of employing managed service providers, most of them are listed below. As compared to an in-house employee, a remote employee possesses all the benefits of an MSP such as, good health benefits, medical benefits, paid holidays, paid sick leave, paid paternity and maternity leave, paid vacations, etc. An outsourced professional is also capable of learning new skills as he gets to work with different types of clients and can prove his proficiency by gaining experience in a specific niche. Lastly, these professionals can be deployed anywhere in the world and the only restriction that they face is the distance between their home and workplace.
With the increase in the demand of MSP, the number of providers also increased. However, many businesses owners are reluctant to hire an MSP due to the fact that the charges of hiring such a professional are much higher than the costs of maintaining an in-house staff. Many business owners hire third-party outsourcing providers instead of MSP. When the outsourcing providers are hired, the client is charged with the entire monthly fee irrespective of whether he receives any work done or not. This type of arrangement attracts new customers to the business and ensures that the business owner maintains low overhead costs.
Outsourcing is a cost-effective way of ensuring quality output. The term services offered covers a wide spectrum from performing basic administrative tasks to the design and development of specialized software systems. A managed service provider who is hired as an outsourced professional has the liberty to work according to the client’s time schedule. In addition to this, he is also entitled to have a personal life outside work and also receive equal benefits as the employees.
The services that an outsourced expert provides include administrative support such as planning and scheduling, back office activities like data entry, secretarial services, shopping carts, etc., development of custom software applications, designing and implementing reports, technical support, implementation of marketing campaigns and managing vendor management. These services are provided on a cost-reward basis. Business owners who outsource to an MSP can save a lot of money as well as time. Time is the biggest factor involved in running a small-scale or medium-scale business. The owner has to be on his toes all the time because it is a business that requires regular monitoring to avoid any unplanned downtime. On the other hand, the time taken by vendors to implement and maintain the solution provided is less, which results in cost cutting.
Since the IT infrastructure involves a lot of investments, running a business, even a small scale one, can turn out to be quite expensive. So, it is better to outsource these projects than to buy and maintain additional infrastructure for the business. However, it is important to state that it is not just about saving money for businesses but also the quality of service as well. Third-party MSPs have skilled professionals who are skilled at building customized solution for a client. In addition to this, they are aware of the latest trends in the IT industry, thus enabling them to deliver only the best.
