Eight Benefits of Co-managed IT Support

Although the cost of a co-managed contract with an outsourced IT company can vary widely (depending on the number of employees retained and extent of services required by a client business), the average co-managed contract falls under the cost of a new IT employee.

When a business enters a co-management agreement with a high-quality MSP, it essentially contracts an entire team of experts to support their business. After cost savings, this is often the most compelling reason for a business to pursue a co-managed IT solution. The world’s most knowledgeable IT technician would be unable to compete with the combined experience and expertise of even a lackluster MSP.

Since cybersecurity and compliance are specialized arenas, most small businesses lack in-house expertise. To address this issue, full-service MSPs often employee an expert that advises clients how to remain in compliance in their specific market. Any MSP advertising cybersecurity services should have at least one expert, if not an entire team, dedicated to proactive cybersecurity.

Like an outside consultant that provides a fresh, unclouded perspective of reality in your business, a co-management partner can provide an unbiased view of your IT system. A high-quality MSP is constantly researching the market and providing support to a wide variety of businesses. SMBs can leverage their IT partner’s experience and knowledge to make strategic investments in their infrastructure that give them a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Since a co-managed IT support contract could include a solitary service or an expansive suite of services, the role of existing IT staff may change dramatically or very little. If an MSP provides limited support, staff will continue to execute their normal responsibilities albeit with far lighter burdens. If support is more extensive, an in-house IT person may shift their role from “default support person” to “IT liaison”—managing their business’s relationship with an MSP and providing strategic direction for its services.  

A business puts itself at risk when it perpetually postpones critical upgrades. As servers, computers, and networks slow to a crawl, the collective loss of productivity provoked by this situation exacts a high cost each day that the slowdown passes without remedy. If a critical server or computer crashes completely, the cost of lost data, lost business, and downtime can be dangerously high. Co-managed support can not only implement proactive upgrades to existing infrastructure, but carry out specialized projects that increase the capacity of the entire business.

Depending on a client’s preferences, an MSP can assume all helpdesk responsibilities or provide support only in limited circumstances: after regular business hours or in periods of high demand (for example if the IT service ticket backlog reaches a certain threshold).

A full-service MSP can often provide a wide variety of services for a single monthly cost. In our case, NOC Technology can bundle nearly all of our fully-managed and co-managed clients’ IT services in a single, stable monthly cost: internet service, VoIP phone systems, helpdesk support, cloud services, data storage, hardware leases, software licenses, project implementation, IT policy and compliance services, cybersecurity (implementation, monitoring, and training), and more.