Upgrade or Stay Put? Assessing the Benefits of Changing Your IT Managed Service Provider

Should I do nothing and wait to see if my current IT provider gets its act together?

Ask yourself if it’s worth it for your business to stall, stop, or wait for any reason. The answer is NO. The purpose of running a business is to perform and grow, moving forward every day. 

Whereas an IT managed service provider (MSP) aims to ensure your business can do just that – grow and move forward daily. Working with a strong MSP partner provides business management services that enable your business to succeed with a secure, accessible, and high-performing system. 

This guide describes when to pull the plug on a poor MSP, the benefits of a strong MSP business partnership, and how to find the best one.

Key Takeaways:

• When is it time to ditch your IT MSP?
• Why is a reliable IT MSP essential for business success?
• How can you assess the current state of your IT?
• Find the right MSP partner for your business

When is it time to ditch your current IT MSP?

There’s no way to avoid changing an MSP provider when the relationship fails to provide proactive and effective service. The risk of waiting is high. If your MSP fails to perform, allowing them additional time leaves your business open to security issues, poor productivity, low morale, and falling revenues. Culture change within a company takes significant time, and choosing to wait it out is the same as doing nothing to serve or build your business.

If your current MSP does not serve the interests of your business at every level, it’s time to make a change for the better. Sure, getting used to a new system will cause disruption, but the results will be swift and welcome to employees suffering from bad service.

Check-in with employees at all levels across the organization to gauge the true value of your MSPs service. Many inadequate MSPs focus only on upper management, leaving workers to wait. Your business won’t thrive when work is not getting done.

If your executive or management teams are not having regular and effective meetings with your MSP, consider it time to change MSPs. Businesses thrive when an MSP is in an active relationship with the business. Quality MSPs communicate effectively and proactively to bring a business new technology and solutions to improve business operations and generate revenue. 

Change is difficult and often time-consuming. However, the risk to the business’s health is greater when an MSP is failing. Consider if your MSP is behind on issue resolution, system updates, or other technology. If they are then your business is open to serious security incidents that may result in significant financial and reputational losses.

While you’re waiting around to change a failed MSP relationship, your competitors are getting ahead of you and leveraging updated technology to attract more customers and generate additional revenue.

An MSP needs to be your business partner that reduces risks and generates benefits at every level.

Why is a reliable IT MSP essential for business success?

All businesses rely on strong and effective relationships. Employees, managers, stakeholders, and vendors contribute to business success over time. Strong business relationships are built on open and direct communication and process transparency. The relationship between an MSP and the business is no different.

Good IT MSPs provide business value by increasing productivity while cutting costs. When an MSP is ineffective, the business suffers. Issues increase, and fixes take longer, if they happen at all. Fixes that don’t happen hold up work getting done and increase employee frustration. Everyone wins with a quality MSP relationship.

Quality IT MSP service means:

• Easy and direct IT support accessible to employees  from anywhere
• Quick and effective issue resolution
• Proactive system maintenance to prevent issues
• Proactive identification of areas that may be improved with technology solutions
• Continuous security monitoring and a response and recovery plan
• High-performing systems that enable work to get done on time
• Reliable issue response and development as the source of system knowledge

Work quality is essential to building and managing a successful business. In the same way, quality MSP services make a significant difference. Instead of simply meeting business commitments, a MSP should help you strategize and build revenue.

How can you assess the current state of your IT MSP?

Have you heard complaints, but you’re not sure about the current state of your IT managed service provider? Are they good or bad? Assessing the current state of your IT-managed service provider is essential to knowing if your MSP is helping or putting the business at risk.  

Ways to assess the quality of your MSP include:

• Solicit feedback from every employee in the company
• Request a new IT assessment or account review
• Request service metrics from the past 3, 6, or 12 months
• Review alert monitoring on systems
• Review issue reports and when, if, and how long it took to resolve them
• Analyze the state of your business model and determine if your MSP is supporting all business objectives or goals
• Review the SLAs you and your MSP established and determine if they are being met
• Analyze the MSP's communication over the past year

Your business depends on being able to compete within your industry continuously. The ability for a business to remain competitive is to take advantage of a trusted IT-managed service provider’s knowledge and expertise on emerging technology trends that fit your business model. 

Need help finding the right MSP partner for your business? 

Endsight assesses your system and creates a workable and budget-friendly IT support strategy for the long run. Build a true MSP business partnership with Endsight. 

Providing quality IT managed services requires an effective business partnership with clear communication and trust. 

Endsight has a strong, successful following. Read more to find out why our customers chose us and why they stay. You’ll never have to worry about communication failures, inaccurate information, or poor service. 

Looking for a high-quality and responsive MSP? Check into Endsight. Find out how Endsight can help you build your business through a strong, supportive, and equitable business partnership. We keep your systems secure and running efficiently so you can focus on getting work done.