Every industry needs IT: companies spent trillions of dollars on IT in 2019, yet not every company has the capability to take care of IT in-house. If this sounds familiar, you may wish to take advantage of managed IT. If you’re looking for IT services in Los Angeles, we’re here to explain exactly what managed IT is, how it can benefit your business, and other key managed IT benefits.
When you’ve finished this guide, you’ll have a much better understanding of what hiring a managed IT company can do for you and how you can hire them. Are you ready to learn more? Then read on!
What Are Managed IT Services?
If you hire managed IT support in LA, what can they do for you? What services will be involved with managed IT services and how do they compare to other IT management methods? Let’s take a closer look!
Managed IT Services Take IT Out of Your Hands
For some small and medium-sized businesses, having an in-house IT department can be a massive drain on your bottom line. Employing these specialists is expensive, and you can’t go without them. Maybe you’ve tried running your IT services yourself and found yourself overwhelmed by technological jargon.
Managed IT services in Los Angeles will take IT management out of your hands.
There are a few key benefits to this. Firstly, you’ll have more time to focus on your work, no matter what your position in the company. Secondly, you can rest easy, knowing that professionals are taking care of your computer systems and keeping your network safe, secure, and maintained.
What Can a Managed IT Company Do for My Business?
A managed IT support company can take care of every aspect of your business’ IT if you’d like. This means monitoring everything about your network and its components for signs of issues while shoring up your business’ security and infrastructure.
This all-inclusive approach offers fantastic coverage of everything on your business’ network. The managed IT services company will be able to curate a number of different programs that will offer overlapping protection, redundancy, and create a stronger foundation for your business’ computers.
However, this approach isn’t going to be for everyone. Perhaps you’d simply like to bring in a group of experts to create a strong VPN for your business, an essential tool when many employees are working from home. Maybe you’d like to bolster your physical security with the help of IP video surveillance.
A managed IT services company will be able to help you put these solutions in place and monitor them for you after installation.
Managed IT Services in Los Angeles Tend to Be Proactive Rather Than Reactive
When it comes to your IT, being reactive is a security risk. Being reactive means responding to issues as they arise, rather than preventing them from happening.
This can be catastrophic for your business. Increased website downtime or being unable to communicate with your customers can cost you some serious cash and damage the trust that you’ve built up with your customers over the years.
It can also result in serious issues for your business: if you get infected with malware, for instance, you’ll need to restore from backups, potentially losing a lot of working hours. If malware infects your system, it’s also possible that you’ll end up with a data breach, which can cost your business millions of dollars.
The only way to stop these kinds of issues from spiraling into something worse is by stopping them from happening in the first place. A proactive approach, which a great IT support company will offer you, will be able to keep things running smoothly.
Managed IT Services in Los Angeles Could Save You Money
IT costs can be somewhat unpredictable, especially if you’re reactive. You may need to upgrade your infrastructure, remove malware, hire and fire staff, train your employees and put new IT policies in place.
This means that IT costs can fluctuate a lot from month to month, and you can never be sure quite how much it’s going to cost you.
Managed IT services take care of this. When you hire a managed IT services company, you’ll be given a monthly bill that covers it all. There aren’t any hidden fees, and you’ll have a much more predictable cost that you can budget around.
This is especially true if you have all-inclusive managed IT services: everything computer-related will be taken care of in that one bill, giving you freedom and peace of mind.
Managed IT Services Bring Increased Adoption and Scalability
Many businesses aren’t using the latest technology, and this could spell trouble for them in the future. For instance, in 2019, one-third of businesses still had Windows XP deployments, despite Microsoft ending official support for the OS in 2014.
This use of old software, OSs, and even hardware can put your business at risk. If there aren’t any more updates for your software or firmware updates for your hardware, there are going to be some security holes that won’t ever be fixed, and you’re essentially giving criminals a free pass into your network.
Your company needs to adopt more modern tech that comes with official support if it is to be safe and secure over the coming years.
Yet adopting new tech isn’t only good for security: it also offers a great way to keep your records safe in private clouds, make Office 365 migrations easier, and more.
Technology adoption is far easier if you’ve got the backing of a great managed IT services company that can help you make the switch. It takes a lot of stress off you and your colleagues and ensures a smooth transition.
IT consulting in Los Angeles can also help you to scale your IT to your business. As your business grows, your network’s capabilities need to as well, as does your level of security and your level of IT support. It’s simple to scale up your IT services: simply ask for the new services, add them to your bill, and start using them right away.
Key Types of Managed IT Services
Managed IT services is a term that covers a huge number of different services that you and your business can benefit from, In this section, we’ll take a look at some of the most common types of managed IT services and what they specialize in.
Managed IT Security
The security of your business is of huge importance. New malware is created daily, and if you want to stay safe, you need to take a multilayered approach to security.
Your business’ security should include key features such as firewalls and antimalware software, but you need to go deeper than that if you want to protect yourself from new and unknown malware. This is where more advanced techniques such as hardening Microsoft Windows, update management, and dark web scanning come into their own.
This array of techniques, when used in combination with each other, will help to prevent malware infections, data leaks, and other security issues that affect modern businesses.
Managed IT Support
IT support is a key part of business. It’s inevitable that, from time to time, your employees are going to have technical issues that they don’t know how to fix. When this happens, they’re going to need the help of an IT support professional.
While you can do this in-house, it adds to the workload of your IT staff, which is usually pretty high anyway. It also takes up a lot of their workday, meaning that they can’t do more important things such as installing new infrastructure, tweaking security settings, and more.
Hiring IT support in LA will take a lot of the work off your IT team’s shoulders. They can focus on taking care of bigger issues while another company helps your employees stay productive and fix minor issues.
IT Analysis
It’s worth having an outsider audit your IT setup. If you’re a new company, in particular, you might not have a lot of experience with IT, and it’s possible that there’s a lot of room for improvement.
IT consulting services can come to your business and analyze every aspect of your IT setup. They can then put a report together and help you take the necessary action that’s needed to bring your setup up to speed.
Cloud and Data Management
If you’re having issues with knowing how to store customer data securely, or where to store your confidential company files, a managed services company can help you. They can help you create a private cloud and migrate to it, as well as helping you maintain backups of your company data.
Having your data stored securely is essential: you need to be able to protect data from prying eyes while making it easy for employees to access. Backups are vital in case something goes wrong, and you need to restore your business’ files from a backup.
How to Choose Managed IT Services in Los Angeles
Now that we’ve taken a look at what managed IT services are, how they can help you, and the different types of IT services companies, it’s time to look at how to choose the right company for you. Choosing an IT services company that you can trust is essential, given the sheer responsibility that you are handing over to them.
Budgeting
This is particularly key if you’re hiring a managed services provider to replace your IT department. If you end up paying more for the same level of service, you’ll likely regret your choice.
You should also make sure that the company doesn’t charge you by the hour. Ideally, you will have a flat bill to pay per month, no matter how much they’ve helped you out.
Accountability
You’re handing over a lot of responsibility to the managed services provider. They need to be accountable, should something go wrong as a result of their negligence.
Check the contract carefully to make sure that they would be accountable instead of you, should something go wrong with their solutions. You should also check that they are well-insured.
Are They Good Communicators?
While this is most important if you’re bringing in a provider to take care of your IT support, it matters no matter their specialization. The provider needs to be able to communicate complex and technical issues clearly to laypeople.
If they can’t do this, it’s likely that they won’t be of much help to you or your employees. Make sure that they’re able to simplify difficult topics.
Previous Experience
You should take a look at the company’s previous experience. Which industries have they worked in and what do they know about the specific threats that your company may face?
Reviews From Previous Customers
It’s always worth taking a look at what previous customers have to say about a business. While the company’s testimonials page is a good place to start, they aren’t exactly balanced.
If you want to get a more objective view of what this company is like to work with, Google the business and take a look at the reviews on there. They’re not cherry-picked like the testimonials, so they may be a more reliable aid.
Understanding Managed IT Services
We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at managed IT services and what they are. If you’re interested in hiring managed IT services in Los Angeles, Bestructured can help you.
Our team of experts can help you with every aspect of your company’s IT and can create custom solutions that are tailored to your company. We’ve helped many businesses across several key industries and would love to add you to our list of clients.
For more information about us and our services, contact us today!
