Business owners are always looking for ways to reduce costs and maximize returns on their investments -- or at least they should be. But such frugality and foresight are often forgotten when it comes to the maintenance and support of their office IT.

Which is curious, especially considering how critically important one’s technology is to the success of their business. Could you even imagine trying to serve your clients if your email crashed for the morning, your phones were down all afternoon, or your Internet disconnected every 10 minutes throughout the day?

Yet these are precisely the types of problems you’re prone to having if you don’t monitor and manage your technology closely, or outsource it to the experts to monitor and manage for you.

What does outsourced IT entail?

Getting serious about carefully managing all aspects of your IT is only half the battle; the other half is making it happen. But since most people leading small- and medium-sized organizations are too busy to handle it internally, outsourcing the whole shootin’ match has come into favor.

Outsourced IT is much more than a business technology trend, though. It helps companies of all shapes and sizes, across all industries, reduce costs, increase network uptime, enhance employee efficiency, improve data security, and reap the rewards of many other bottom-line boosting benefits.

In most cases, companies outsource their IT maintenance and support to a type of hi-tech firm known as an MSP. That stands for Managed Services Provider, and proactive, round-the-clock monitoring of your entire IT infrastructure is what they provide -- for an affordable, fixed monthly fee.

How can outsourced IT save you money?

Working with a managed services provider places experts at the fore, ready to resolve the email, phone system, and Internet issues that caused your users such problems in the past, usually before they can even occur. This provides most business owners with a sense of relief as soon as they sign up with an MSP.

But what also becomes clear from the outset is how an MSP can save you money. Instead of having to pay an invoice every time you call for professional technical support, an MSP will provide a comprehensive plan to optimize your IT at every turn, but bill you at a reasonable, all-inclusive rate just once per month for all services.

This sort of cost-efficiency will be realized in your equipment outlays, too. With an MSP’s guidance, you’ll end up purchasing only the tools you need. Charles IT’s engineers, for example, are not only expert technicians, but also business-technology news hounds who maintain active relationships with numerous hardware and software manufacturers so our customers get the best deals.

What are the other benefits for business owners?

Conventional managed services programs include 24/7 monitoring of your office technology, covering everything from servers, desktops, and mobile devices to operating systems, browsers, and software applications.

The cost benefits of less frequent breakdowns and less frequent replacements are clear, but outsourcing your IT provides an array of advantages beyond direct spending that will make your life as a business owner much easier.

First is the way an MSP will streamline your cybersecurity game, which is crucial, especially with destructive ransomware like WannaCry floating around. After having read that, would you rather take on the next big malware threat by yourself, or have a staff of certified experts handle your network’s security?

After that comes another important “S” word called “scalability.” This refers to the ease with which businesses can “scale up” their systems so employees or even outside stakeholders can access them, and in most cases requires a fair bit of hardware and software tinkering. Unless, of course, you’ve subscribed to a managed services plan, in which case you won’t have to lift a finger.

What about your employees?

You’ll also quickly discover the huge opportunity cost involved with doing this stuff internally. Think of all the more productive things you could be doing if you didn’t have to hook up computers, reformat servers, and upgrade software yourself.

And the results will be better when such tasks are performed by professionals, bringing us around to how an MSP directly benefits your employees: with increased network uptime, streamlined software apps, fast and stable WiFi, optimized mobile devices, enhanced collaboration tools… the list goes on, and it all leads to more efficient, productive workers.

That’s a boon for business owners, and just another reason to consider outsourcing your IT to an MSP. And with a respectable one like Charles IT at the helm, everything gets managed by one provider and the typical vendor-client relationship gets elevated to something more akin to a partnership -- where our customers’ IT is looked after as meticulously as our own.