Why Work With a Virtual CIO

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It’s a busy world.  I am busy, you are busy. Even our kids are busy…  Busy, busy busy!!!

Technology is changing at a rapid pace.  Very few of us have the time (or the inclination) to keep up with it.

Even if you did have the time to keep up with technology change in your industry, chances are you would not have the time to think strategically about it, analysing, comparing and contrasting the different tech options to decide which best fits your specific businesses problems.  You are probably just too busy, right?

In today’s business world where everyone has got a degree (or two), the nature of work, especially knowledge work, has become increasingly specialised.  Think about Law for example.  Not too long ago we used to study Law and become a Lawyer.  You could specialise in criminal, family, commercial and tax law. Nowadays there is a specialisation for law in all walks of life; banking, environmental, media, consumer, international, civil, public administration…. and the list goes on.  IT has gone down the same path.  Not too long ago we used to study IT and become an IT Nerd (or their less helpful cousins, Geeks).  You could specialise in hardware, software application development or infrastructure. Nowadays there is a specialisation for architecture, artificial intelligence, IOT, machine learning, cloud, cyber security, networking, communications, data management….and so on and so forth.

Within this context, as your SME grows and changes to suit the shifting commercial environment, you have a couple of options:

  1. Hire a Jack of all Trades IT person, someone with some knowledge of all areas who can think at a strategic level and deliver at the desktop level. At an annual cost of $150-200k per year. The downside here, besides the significant price-tag, is the challenge of finding the right person.  There is also the time investment of getting them up to speed and, if they are capable, they may be difficult to keep engaged and retained for the medium to long term.
  2. Engage a trusted technology partner and use them as a vCIO. “What is a vCIO” I hear you say?  Let me bring you up to speed…..

A vCIO (Virtual Chief Information Officer) is a high-level IT professional who provides strategic guidance and leadership to a company, but does so remotely, typically through a Managed Services Provider (MSP). The vCIO acts as an outsourced CIO, delivering the same benefits as an in-house CIO without the high cost of employing a full-time executive.

A vCIO provides a wide range of services, including:

  1. IT strategy and planning: The vCIO helps the company develop an IT strategy that aligns with its overall business goals.
  2. Budgeting and cost management: The vCIO assists with developing an IT budget and ensures that the company is maximizing its IT investment.
  3. Risk management: The vCIO helps the company identify and manage IT-related risks, including cybersecurity and data privacy threats.
  4. Vendor management: The vCIO helps the company select and manage its IT vendors, ensuring that the company is getting the best value for its investment.
  5. Technical expertise: The vCIO provides the company with access to a wide range of technical expertise, including cloud computing, networking, security, and data management.

The vCIO model is becoming increasingly popular for small and mid-sized businesses, as it allows them to access high-level IT leadership and expertise at a fraction of the cost of employing a full-time CIO.

With over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, Atlantic Digital is well-equipped to provide businesses with the high-level IT leadership and expertise they need to succeed. Our team of experts has a deep understanding of the various industries and the unique needs of each, and we are always available and responsive whenever you have a need.

Atlantic Digital believe that every business deserves access to the best IT support and services, regardless of size or budget. That’s why the business offers a comprehensive vCIO service, designed to provide clients with the same benefits as an in-house CIO, but at a fraction of the cost.

Whether you’re looking for help with IT strategy and planning, budgeting and cost management, risk management, vendor management, or technical expertise, Atlantic Digital has the experience and expertise to deliver. The vCIO service, you can rest assured that your business is in good hands, and that your IT investments are delivering the results you need to succeed.

So if you’re looking for a reliable and experienced IT provider to support your business growth, look no further than Atlantic Digital. We’re here to help, and we’re ready to get started.

Roadmapping Your Digital Strategy

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I think we can all agree that if you want to have a successful business you need to have a strategy, right?  As a leader or business owner, you have talked to your mentors and valued advisors, accountants and lawyers and you all concur with the plan.  It is simple and effective, right?  You know your target market, your product/service mix is clear, partners and suppliers are identified and supporting technologies chosen.  Your workforce knows what they need to do to be successful and your differentiators and go-to-market strategy for 2023 and beyond have an edge on the competition.  No need to waste time documenting it when that will take time away from actually executing it, right?  WRONG!

You see, something happens when you start to write down the plan that is in your head and in the heads of other members of your team. What was once a group of (perhaps well ordered) thoughts, becomes a visual image in the form of words.  Still not crystal clear, but a lot clearer, especially to new team members or those with a different (read diverse) background, education or perspective. These team members, likely to be the senior members of your business, will then ask questions to clarify their understanding and they will give new information and opinions that supplement what you thought were the best possible ideas.  The strategy will get tweaked and sometimes parts of it will change completely based on the new information and additional viewpoints.  At the end of this process the strategy is likely to be much better than it was when it was rolling around inside your own brain.

Another thing happens during this process; something far more powerful than the improvement of the strategy itself!  The communication process leads to engagement, alignment and commitment to the execution of the strategy.  Add to this the action planning process to map out the execution of the strategy over time and you have something even more potent, because once you start measuring the execution of the plan, you can better manage its implementation.  What you measure, you can manage. Don’t ever forget this concept; what you measure, you can manage.  A dearth in measurement makes the day to day, tactical management of any strategy nigh on impossible.

The same communication, improvement, alignment and commitment magic occurs whether we are talking about the development of an overarching business strategy, a marketing strategy, a HR strategy or a product development strategy.  To show you how this can work for your business, the below looks more closely at the development and articulation of a digital strategy and tactical execution via a road-map.

Development and Execution of a Digital Roadmap – Understanding the Battle Field

Today’s business strategy, both the theory and its practice, has roots embedded in military warfare.  How far back and from what nation or civilisation…it’s not clear. One thing that is clear though, is that you cannot fight a war (or build a business) in a void.  Imagine a battlefield.  Be it thick lush rainforest, sand dunes or mulga scrub, the terrain will impact your attack and defence plans.  How about the competition, your enemies; Sun Tzu’s famous quote is instructive, “Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.”  In the business context this is about understanding the competition and their product/service offering, being clear on your own offering and the underlying capabilities of your team and your organisation.  Apply this to the development of a digital strategy and roadmap and ask yourself:

  1. What does the digital environment look like; is it dated racks, servers and MSDos-esque software, or best of breed, cloud based systems?
  2. What is the existing digital security like? E8 compliant, or wormholes everywhere?
  3. How supportable is the existing technology infrastructure, both locally and remotely?
  4. How manageable or useable is the hardware, especially in a hybrid world; old desktops or is there a fleet of slick new, work-anywhere laptops

Once you have answered these questions you are only just at the starting line.  You have positioned yourself on the roadmap to your technological future.  In process mapping terms, you have adequately described your “As Is”.  In order to get to your “To Be” position, more thought is required:

  1. What is the objective of the technology to be used; what business plans and outcomes must it support?
  2. Is the existing technology infrastructure scalable to support business growth in terms of volume, users, geographic diversity etc.?
  3. What is falling apart and in need of urgent attention/replacement to avoid a catastrophic breakdown in production/revenue?
  4. What systems are limiting business growth?
  5. What software is out of date, unsupported or nearing end-of-life?
  6. What improvements will create a huge step change in the way you execute your business, or, will create multiple time/cost efficiencies that will, over time, accumulate to have a significant impact on systems reliability, security or performance?

Answering the above questions is instructive in understanding where you want to be in your digital landscape; at first glance.  However, this stage of the digital road-mapping process also invites a lot more questions that generate options.  And these options need to be considered and evaluated.  Once the options are considered and decisions are made, there is the matter of priorities.  How do these changes and improvements fit into the overall business strategy roadmap? And what is the financial cost?

However, before you do this I’d encourage you to ask yourself one more question; “Do I want to play the game, change the rules or change the game”?

Play the Game, Change the Rules or Change the Game

This is a question of innovation appetite. Do you want to use technology to create a competitive advantage against your opponents?  Is this even possible in your industry?

Perhaps you just want to play the game: this means limiting spend, working technology assets hard and minimising risks as they become evident.  Perhaps this is enough to support the business in the executing of its overall strategy and satisfies the ROI expectations of the investors.  No problem!  Consider the options, make your priorities and create your digital roadmap.

Or perhaps you want to play the game and also change some of the rules to give you a technological advantage over the competition: this means exploring technology options more broadly, considering tech advances and learnings from other industries, taking measured risks and investing in the future, rather than protecting what you have now.  This strategy is likely to raise some investor eyebrows and elicit concerns.  However, through solid research and a bit of effort, risks can be identified and mitigated. No problem!  Consider the options, make your priorities and create your digital roadmap.

Finally, for all of the out of the box thinkers out there, maybe you want to implement a new/untested technology in your industry or geographic market; one that will put the cat amongst the pigeons.  Consider a technology that you or one of your people saw while abroad on holidays, or imagined while thinking deeply on a significant business challenge.  Maybe you could create your own technology, like Atlantic Digital has done with the in-house development of its proprietary Adonis ITSM, or otherwise change the game through the application of an existing technology in a way that has never before been imagined? This strategy is very likely to create some opposition amongst the powers that be!  Unless of course there is open communication, deep consideration of the risks and plans to mitigate them, alignment, and ultimately a firm commitment to the plan.  Once again, no problem, create your digital roadmap.

Measure and Manage across the 5 Digital Pillars

The last this to consider for any complete roadmap is addressing the 5 digital pillars:

  1. Security
  2. Supportability
  3. Manageability / Useability
  4. Scalability
  5. Future/Growth

Most of these have been touched on above.  However the main reason for repeating them here is a reminder to consider how your business will measure the success of roadmap implementation for each of the pillars.  Once again this will depend largely on your digital landscape and business strategy.  Remember, regardless of the way you measure success, make it transparent for the appropriate people in your team to support the management of the plan.  Partnering with a trusted MSP like Atlantic Digital can make this entire process seamless.

Summary

In summary, any successful business that relies on technology needs a digital strategy and roadmap.  The strategy/roadmap development and communication process leads to engagement, alignment and commitment to the execution of the strategy.  While developing your roadmap, first seek to understand your digital landscape and be clear on how technology must be integrated and configured to support the overall business strategy.  Decide if you want to play the game, change the rules or change the game.  Do the work to manage and mitigate the risks of your chosen approach, then prioritise, set you budget and finalise your digital strategy.  Finally, don’t forget to consider the 5 digital pillars and measure progress to ensure you are able to successfully manage the execution of your roadmap.  Happy travels!

 

 

 

Leadership in a Hybrid Digital World

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The world changed in early 2020; for better or worse, who knows for sure.  For business leaders, COVID was just another challenge in a never ending list of challenges to overcome, risks to manage and opportunities to leverage.  For employees who were able to work from home (WFH), the first year was a difficult time adjusting to the new world of work.  Thank goodness for the technology that enabled WFH and for the people who set up literally millions of home offices across the globe.

In hindsight, it’s fair to say that, for employees, COVID’s silver lining was the advent of hybrid working; less travel time, more time with family and greater flexibility around when and where work is completed.  For people leaders and managers, however, hybrid working creates a conundrum.  How do they ensure that all of these positives for employees translate into positives for the business – or at least not negatives such a less peer to peer collaboration, reduced trust with managers or customers or declining revenue and profit?

Perhaps the novelty will wear off for employees and they will return to the office soon.  Maybe a lack of productivity while working from home will create a situation where WFH is seen as unviable for certain roles, companies or industries.  Or perhaps managers and people leaders will encourage or direct employees to return to the office because culture/business indicators are dropping. Only time will tell.

Whatever legacy COVID and hybrid working leaves on the world of work, the exact context and the ultimate outcome is sure to be different by industry, by business, by role and by individual.  The question is, what is your context?  And what are you going to do to manage it?

A recent article by Gartner Research is instructive on the development of a 1 year plan to understand the context of hybrid working and to develop a plan to ensure that leadership and culture remains in-tact or flourishes in a hybrid working world.  The following borrows from this article to provide a step by step plan for leadership in a hybrid digital world. https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources

A Step by Step Plan

Well before the pandemic, famous management consultant and writer Peter Drucker coined the phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast”!  For clarity, he did not mean that strategy is unimportant – rather that an empowered organisational culture is a better path to achieving an organisations objectives.  Drucker’s words remain true today, and are perhaps even more important in a world were once solid strategic plans have been rendered useless by the breakdown of supply chains and other contingencies that could not have been planned for.

So, yes, by all means, create a strategic plan!  But reinforce it through a solid culture that can be leveraged when things go wrong.  Here is a simple 3 step plan.

  1. Adjust your culture to support a hybrid workforce
  2. Leverage new technology to enable people to be successful in a hybrid environment
  3. Upskill managers and leaders

Each step is explained below for clarity and to support implementation…

Step 1:  Adjust your culture to support a hybrid workforce

“As the world changes, stay true to your path and don’t change a thing,” said NO successful leader ever……  In business, staying still or failing to adjust as the context changes is suicide.  In industries and departments where working from home is technologically and practically possible, you can fight against hybrid working and lose your best people to more flexible organisations, or go with it, leveraging the benefits and mitigating the risks as best you can.  We recommend the latter.

If you are not clear on the profile of your existing culture, you have work to do.  Sack your HR person, run a culture survey and get your head around the importance of culture in a successful business.

If you are clear on where your business is at, culturally, and where you want to go, start by running a workshop with leaders and managers to identify both the risks and the benefits of hybrid working for their department and the broader business.   Develop initiatives to mitigate the risks and leverage the benefits.  For example, if relationships and trust between departments and individuals is critical to flow of information and the creation of value, ensure that the relevant teams and individuals have sufficient time in the office, especially early in their service, to get to know other key stakeholders.  Create ‘crossover days’ between departments and individuals, organise multi-team lunches and quarterly culture building events or implement a simple, digital peer to peer reward and recognition system, such as Bonusly.

Work with your teams to clarify which of the tasks they do on a day-to-day basis are best done from home; focussed, in-depth thinking, analysis etc. – work best done alone.  Contrast this with work that is best completed in a collaborative environment; idea generation, process improvements, relationship building etc.

Whatever actions you take, engage deeply and openly with your people, communicate, communicate, communicate and act on feedback swiftly and transparently.  You can be sure that this approach is better than doing nothing. For culture to succeed in a hybrid world, leaders must work intentionally to align and connect their people.

Step 2:  Leverage new technology to enable people to be successful in a hybrid environment

“They’ve got an App for that.”  Ever heard this term?  New technologies are being developed and released every day.  If you have a business problem or opportunity for improvement, chances are someone else has tried to solve it with a technology solution.

The first challenge is that sometimes the people in your team don’t have the knowledge of what technology is on offer in the market or the expertise to manage the wide array of technology challenges that can present themselves in your IT environment.   Partnership with an MSP can fill such a knowledge/skills gap ensuring you have the best fit between your problems and the tech solutions on offer.  MSP’s like Atlantic Digital employ very experienced, trusted IT practitioners who provide insight and continuity during the implementation of medium to long term IT Roadmaps.

MS Teams, Trello, Team viewer, Zoom, Envoy, IdeaFlip… these are merely a handful of the hundreds of apps that support and leverage hybrid working environments.  Remember Skype….kinda hit and miss for connecting with remote locations.  Remember getting in the lift and walking over to a stakeholder’s workspace on another floor….just to find that they are out to lunch.  By implementing best of breed systems and tools, your teams can be in a position to save heaps of time, connecting and collaborating, literally at the press of a button!

Step 3: Upskill managers and leaders

Gartner’s research supports the position that effective hybrid leaders are human leaders who are authentic, empathetic and adaptive to individual employees.  This research also suggests that culture connectedness is in crisis and must be accounted for in a hybrid workplace.  Firstly let’s take a closer look at the concept of culture connectedness.  Then we can consider the kind of upskilling managers need to make a positive impact in this space.

Gartner states that alignment and connectedness operate like the left and right sides of your brain — rational and emotional. Both contribute to a culture’s impact on business outcomes, such as performance and retention. The challenge is that “connectedness’ suffers in a hybrid world, however, without intentional efforts to cultivate it.  The informal coffee conversations become less frequent, people’s days in the office fail to cross over and people stop dropping by others offices because they are not sure if they will be there or not.  Add to this the increased turnover of staff (in some industries like technology) and you can see why some people’s paths may not cross for weeks or months, leading to an increasingly disconnected workforce.

And guess what?  The bad news does not end there, without the informal connecting interactions and conversations, alignment suffers!  This can lead to business and relationship problems between key stakeholders.  Not a path that you want to be on as a manager of leader…..

The upskilling solution, according to Gartner is to:

  1. Diffuse the culture through the actual work that people do:
    • Make people aware of the value their role provides the business and reinforce that this value is not tied to a location, but to an outcome.
    • Ensure people are getting personal value through their work – such as career development
    • Map and align the content and process of the work against the organisational values; we do this to achieve a “trusted relationship with customers”, we do that to ensure “our products are high quality” etc.

 

  1. Connect with individuals and teams through emotional proximity, when physical proximity cannot occur:
    • Create empathy, not just interest, for the mission of the organization by making its impact tangible to the individual. Help people to understand and articulate their “why” for working in your business.
    • Identify the “moments that matter” when employees are most likely to feel seen by others in the organization, and create these more intentionally. Understand how people want to be recognised and rewarded and give them just that.

 

  1. Optimize micro- (small-group) experiences
    • Recognise and accept that there will be sub-cultures within your broader organisational culture. The subcultures will be more adaptable to diversified work contexts.  Team leaders and managers will need to be trained and supported in moulding these sub-cultures
    • Equip managers and leaders to develop their own sub-cultures by introducing a culture mapping and development tool that gives them regular insights into employee sentiments as they change over time. Some good examples are Peakon/Workday, Lattice, Fifteen5 and CultureAmp.  On-point, in-time data on culture trends can create fantastic culture improvements and lead to significant increases in productivity and profitability.

 

Summary

So the above is not the three simple steps you were hoping for?  You are right; it’s not simple at all.  But you have to start adjusting your leadership and your culture to support a hybrid workforce, lest you’ll be lost in the dark ages of business.  You will need to leverage some of the new technology that is hitting the market to enable your people to be successful in a hybrid environment.  Upskilling managers and leaders is a great first step.  There is lots of literature out there.  All you really need is some direction and a little motivation to set you and your business on a path to success in this hybrid digital world.

 

How to Break Up with Your Current MSP

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Relationships can be hard!  Personal relationships, stakeholder relationships, customers, business partners….and don’t get me started on kids!

In business, relationships need to be win-win to ensure the creation of value for both parties and they often start out that way.  But over time, a lot of things can change; markets shift, quality can drop, products become commoditised as technology advances in leaps and bounds.  And relationships can falter as operational issues arise and expectations are not met.  Some businesses grow and others wither and die.  It is impossible to predict if business partners and suppliers you have chosen are going to be able to deliver on their end of the bargain – long term.  This is why, sometimes, you have to “break up” with the organisations that provide you products and services….when value is no longer being created, when prices increase but the service does not, when products are dropping in quality, when timeframes are rarely met, when relationship dysfunction impacts business outcomes or when the other party is just taking advantage of you.

No one likes a break up.  It’s a difficult conversation that few people want to have.  It can lead to disappointment and bad blood.  It can get messy!  The below contains some hints and tips to assist you in times like this.  The context in this blog is breaking up with your MSP (an IT Managed Service Provider) but the wisdom below is applicable to most other business break-ups too.

Problems that can arise?

Before launching in to break up strategies, let’s have a quick look at some typical problems that can arise when you have been working with the same MSP for a while:

  1. Complacency:
    • There appears to be no IT strategy or plan in existence from your current provider
    • You are experiencing declining organisational productivity due to mis-management of technology resources
    • There is a lack of support and service from the existing IT resources at times when they are most needed
  1. Poor response to a specific incident:
    • A cyber-attack has highlighted poor cyber-security systems or practices
    • There has been a loss of business data due to a “ systems failure”
    • There are on-going service outages and/or regular downtime
  1. Cost increases:
    • There has been an overspend on IT, against the budget
    • There are surprise IT expenses that you were not expecting
    • Price hikes are above the market for the services provided
  1. Failure to keep up with the growth of your business
    • The business has grown to the point where staff need to access ‘always on’ IT support, through a 24×7 service desk:- but your existing provider cannot deliver this
    • There is a need for specific technical skills and experience for the implementation of one or more business-critical IT projects:- but your existing provider does not have the much needed capability

Does any of this sound familiar?  If so, the best way forward is to have a serious conversation with your existing MSP.  Ever heard of the term “natural justice”?  It means giving people the opportunity to respond and/or the opportunity to improve.  It’s a good strategy to highlight the things that are not going well with your current MSP and clearly articulate your expectations.  Everyone deserves a chance, right?

Next Steps….

So there has been some problems with your MSP (or any other product/service provider you rely on) and you have informally let them know and nothing has changed; things are moving too slow, or they have lapsed back into their old ways?  What’s next you say?  Is it time to break up yet?  I’m afraid so…it’s time to do some adulting!

There are plenty of ways to do this and sometimes you can combine two or more of the below strategies to ensure that you achieve a great business outcome, preserve relationships (where possible) and manage and mitigate risks; like losing data, getting locked out of systems, being stranded without a provider or losing business continuity.  The below are my top 5 strategies for an MSP Breakup:

  1. Review your contract and confirm that it is still “in date”. Confirm the notice period and send a letter/email to your Account Manager giving notice.  Simple, direct and legal.
  2. If your contract is due to expire in the next 12 months, give your existing provider notice that you intend to “go to market” in the lead up to the expiry date. Invite them to make a submission.
  3. Write a letter or email outlining your concerns, actions you have taken to date and expectations going forward, giving a clear deadline for improvement. This is more of an escalation than a break up, however a good strategy nonetheless.
  4. For the brave: Set up a meeting with your Account Manager in person. Come prepared with the key issues you are dissatisfied with and examples.  Explain your position in a matter-of-fact, dispassionate way and let them know you will be going elsewhere for IT support.
  5. Identify an alternative MSP and set up a meeting to understand how they would better manage the challenges and opportunities within your organisational/industry context. Atlantic Digital aims to be ANZ’s most trusted MSP and is open to supporting business in such a transition.

In Summary

If any of these problems strike a chord with you; your MSP is complacent, responds poorly to critical incidents, is costing too much or cannot keep up with the growth of your business, it is probably time you had a conversation with a trusted, reputable MSP that is local to you.  Breaking up is hard to do, but with the above strategies, you will be in a position to take control of the situation and get into an MSP relationship where your business is proactively supported and is safe from cyber-attack, all for a fair price.  Best of luck!

 

Benefits of Working with an MSP

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Are you frustrated with your current IT services provider?  Or perhaps you have been trying to manage IT in-house and you are not getting the results you expect?  Costs too high?  Solutions not fit for purpose?  Or perhaps your tech is just not keeping pace with the changes going on in your business?  Welcome to the technology challenges of the 2020’s….and (whisper….) it’s not going to get any better unless you do something different.

Whatever the technology challenge, outsourcing your IT worries to a professional MSP company may be the solution you are looking for.  “But what exactly is an MSP” I hear you say.  Well, let’s have a closer look….

What is an MSP?

MSP is a common acronym used in modern businesses. An MSP (a Managed Service Provider), is a business that provides specialised outsourced services, usually IT services, to other businesses.  By outsourcing IT services to an MSP, small to medium sized businesses can obtain a level of IT support far superior to other IT solution options, often at a fraction of the price they are currently paying.  Outsourcing to an MSP can be a cost-cutting strategy, a part of planned business growth, or some other measure to match the changing context of a business.  To better understand the benefits of working with an MSP, let’s first consider some of the common challenges faces by existing MSP customers.

Common IT Challenges and Opportunities for Improvement

Sometimes IT challenges slap you in the face, like a cyber-security attack or a systems crash!  And sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know in this ever changing global technology environment.  The IT challenges and opportunities for improvement can be endless.  To simplify, here are some of the common ones that we regularly see when we meet our customers for the first time:

  • There is no IT strategy or plan in existence
  • There has been a loss of business data due to a “failure”
  • There is declining organisational productivity due to mis-management of technology resources
  • There are regular service outages and/or regular downtime
  • There is a lack of support and service from the existing IT resources
  • There has been an overspend on IT against the budget
  • There are insufficient cyber security measures in place and the business is at risk of cyber attack
  • The business has grown to the point where staff need to access ‘always on’ IT support, through a 24×7 service desk
  • There is a need for specific technical skills and experience for the implementation of one or more business-critical IT projects

Does any of this sound familiar?  If so, it may be time for you to consider the benefits of an outsourced MSP arrangement.

Benefits of an MSP

Most contemporary organisations rely heavily on technology to make their products or provide their services; to keep the wheels of the business rolling.  Bigger businesses sometimes have a whole department of IT “generalists” involved in break-fix IT; when they hear that something is broken, they fix it…  But what do they do when they need specialised knowledge to fix a problem?  Googling can only solve the problem a fraction of the time!  And what about smaller businesses that don’t have a benefit of a capable, on-call IT resource?  To address each of these challenges, it may be time to look to the market to see what outsourced options are available and compare their features and benefits.

Benefit 1 – Manage Costs:  Most businesses juggle network performance, operational needs and security risk, while balancing cost considerations. A critical benefit of the MSP model is that it offers a predictable cost.  Once you sign a contract, you know what the spend is every month.  One less thing to worry about, right?  This way the business can plan better, stick to a budget and keep the owners/shareholders happy.

Benefit 2 – Supplement existing IT support:  The MSP model can also benefit organisations with in-house IT staff. Sometimes in-house staff are inexperienced with new tech or they just don’t have the expertise to manage the wide array of technology challenges that can present themselves in your typical IT environment.   Partnership with an MSP can fill the skills gaps when and where they appear, ensuring you have business continuity.  MSP’s often employ very experienced IT practitioners who can act as a Chief Information Officer, providing insight and continuity for the implementation of medium to long term IT Roadmaps.

Benefit 3 – Manage and Mitigate Risk:  Most businesses face a raft of risks on a daily basis, which, if left unmanaged, could bring the whole organisation down!  Cyber security is a good example.  Would you prefer a novice to do an Essential 8 Audit of your precious IT infrastructure, or a seasoned expert who has tested the security of literally hundreds of businesses?  The capability that goes with years of experience, purpose built IT management tools the latest infrastructure, software, compliance knowledge and security tools is often a better choice for businesses who must mitigate their IT risks to remain viable or stay ahead of the pack.

Benefit 4 – Stay in Front of the Innovation Curve:  MSP’s often provide a shared knowledge pool that is far deeper than in-house IT support.  They have experts in specified fields that work across companies and industries, always learning, poised to solve customer problems at the press of a button – literally!  Without access to an external specialist resource, often times businesses don’t know what they don’t know… There could be a solution to your expensive IT challenge, that you have never heard of, that could save (or make) you literally thousands of $$$ in the next quarter. Let that sink in for a moment…..

In Summary

The MSP model is a great fit for organisations that:

  • Need to keep their business safe from cyber-attack
  • Don’t have any/enough internal IT resource to handle maintenance, updates, and repairs
  • Want to maintain a high level of IT service to the business to support operations for a manageable monthly cost
  • Need to keep their business purring with minimal IT downtime and no lost data
  • Have a need to scale up and down their IT resources to deliver projects that require specialised skills or supplement existing BAU IT functions

If any of this strikes a chord with you or draws a match with your business, it is probably time you had a conversation with a trusted, reputable MSP that is local to you.  Good luck!

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