Keeping track of IT development can be a challenge for companies that aren’t prepared for how quickly technology has been progressing. Even if you are prepared and your strategy accounts for it, managed IT service offerings may be something that’s attractive for your business.
In today’s guide, we’re going to discuss some of the things to consider about managed IT services, including the basics and the reasons why many enterprises decide to invest in these support businesses. We’ll also discuss the history of managed IT services and where it looks like they’re going in the future.
What is a Managed IT Service?
Contents
Managed IT services are essentially providers that blend consulting and technical knowledge to accomplish IT and security tasks for businesses that don’t have the capabilities. In most cases, managed IT services consist of outsourcing IT services to other businesses that have the strategic know-how to accomplish the assigned tasks.
The third-party that manages the cloud services and infrastructure typically consists of a group of technical experts that are known as managed service providers or MSPs. They can provide various services, with offerings as simple as help desk systems to help employees get their technical issues sorted out.
Other services managed by companies like these include the management of IT equipment like servers. Whether you need to give your IT team a bit of breathing room or if you don’t even have an in-house team of technology workers, using a managed IT service can be a little costly, but it can also be crucial.
Why Do Enterprises Use Managed Services for IT?
There are many reasons why businesses use MSP services, but there are two main factors that influence their popularity. The first of these factors is the breakneck pace with which technology has grown in the past couple of decades. The second factor is the huge talent gap that this has created.
Tech’s Rate of Growth
The main thing to consider about technology is that it’s advancing every year, and businesses need to remain abreast of these advancements to ensure that they can still compete. This also has severe implications for cybersecurity, since the ability to attack servers and networks is getting more complex by the year.
This has increased demand for both software and infrastructure. To ensure that these needs are met, businesses need managed services that are outsourced to a third party. One of the main examples of how much technology in business has advanced in the past twenty years is by taking a look at how many devices the average employee uses.
Compared to 20 years ago, where you’d be lucky to have a computer at work, employees now have a smartphone, a laptop at home, and possibly even a tablet.
Along with ensuring that a business is secure, things like cloud service providers will need to be monitored to ensure that there is no downtime caused by unreliability.
The Talent Gap
Another reason why managed IT services are such a popular form of support and monitoring for an enterprise trying to step up its security and tech solutions is due to the lack of talent in the IT field. Due to the astronomical growth of technology, the number of people working in the IT field hasn’t been able to keep up.
For example, more than half of employers have difficulties filling an IT vacancy within three months of losing that employee. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t changing anytime soon, with the technology industry predicted to be missing millions of skilled workers within the next ten years.
With a lack of skilled employees, businesses run the risk of missing crucial security updates that could protect their information. Hiring managed IT services will also ensure that you don’t end up overworking your in-house IT team on relatively mundane operations and maintenance.
The History and Future of Managed IT Services
The break fix method used to be used to manage IT systems in the 1990s, back when they were first being developed. This is because it was easier to fix things once they broke instead of maintaining them because of the relative lack of knowledge about technological systems at the time.
Unfortunately, this method resulted in plenty of downtime while things were being fixed. This would lose companies crucial amounts of income. This led to companies starting to maintain their systems by being proactive and ensuring that common issues wouldn’t get to the point where they would cause problems for the companies using the technology.
Around the late 1990s, companies began using third-party services to manage their IT needs, and this is where managed services began getting popular. Due to the high demand for these services, MSPs are expected to grow by about 12.5% in the next decade.