Managed IT Services – Myths & misconceptions

In the wake of cloud services, more and more organizations are looking to Managed IT Service Providers (MSPs) to support and serve their organizations.

With Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure providing managed cloud infrastructure environments, there is growing comfort in letting ‘someone else’ handle their IT infrastructure operations.

As cloud adoption continues to soar in the Canadian public sector, many common myths and misconceptions associated with IT service providers are being debunked, including:

• Myth #1: Hiring an MSP means I don’t need my own IT resources. Partnering with an MSP usually means supplementing and/ or augmenting an organization’s in-house IT team, not replacing it.
• Myth #2: MSPs only keep the lights on. In addition to IT operations, MSPs routinely engage with their clients for more strategic conversations to ensure clients are making well-informed decisions about their technology investments for years to come.
• Myth #3: MSPs only support large businesses. MSPs have dedicated specialists that provide around-the-clock service and support, which creates cost efficiencies for smaller organizations as they can benefit from ‘big technology’ at ‘smaller scale’.
• Myth #4: Slower time to value. MSPs operate in accordance with standards which benefit both service provider and their clients; they are able to ‘rise the collective tide’ to provide business value in the immediate term(s).

Many organizations are already using an IT services provider; they simply do not realize it! For example, Microsoft Office 365 is one the most common cloud-based user productivity platforms used across the Canadian public sector.

Moreover, as software-as-a-service (SaaS) models become the norm, internal IT organizations are becoming ‘managers and brokers of technology’ as opposed to ‘service providers’ themselves.

For more information on Managed IT Services and how it can support your organization, please contact hylann [at] abmunis.ca (Hylann Ma), Growth and Innovation Manager.