This year we will be talking to all of our clients about the advantages of moving to a Managed Service Plan (MSP).
We’ve written about this a while back, but here we are collating our resources for you to be able to easily access this information and share it with anyone in your business who may have questions.
If you prefer, we’ve made a quick video which covers some of the basics.
Firstly a Quick Review
We wrote a full article here about what “How a Managed Service Provider can help your business”, but lets do a quick review.
- In a nutshell an MSP is your ‘outsourced IT Dept’ that provides proactive IT support.
- An MSP provides preventative measures, detecting most issues long before they become a problem.
- An MSP differs from the ‘break-fix’ model of IT support, where you call an IT company when something breaks, and they come and fix it, on an adhoc pay by hour model. (You can read the full article on the difference between an MSP vs Block hours here).
What are the advantages of an MSP?
- We become an IT partner to your business.
- We provide proactive IT support.
- We understand your business, and have knowledge of your needs.
- Helps with budgeting and cost savings.
So, how does a Managed Service plan work?
Firstly, we help you to determine the level of support that you require.
Ultra IT provide three levels of an MSP agreement depending on the requirements of your business.
We have the Basic, Professional and Ultra package available.
This is a brief overview of what is covered, dependent on the package that you decide to go with.
- Remote Monitoring.
- Continuous 24/7 security including regular and ongoing system updates, software patching, and antivirus.
- Optimising hardware.
- Strategic advice.
- Regular reviews.
- Business Continuity and disaster-recovery strategy.
What is an Service Level Agreement (SLA)?
Part of the MSP contract includes a Service Level Agreement or an SLA. Having an SLA in place for businesses is crucial so that you know what to expect when you have a support request.
The SLA clarifies things like:
- Responsiveness of the service: Details of how quickly the service will be delivered. How long you can expect to wait for support, for both the initial response and the onsite time.
- How to contact us.
- Service description.
- Quality of service.
A real life example from Morgan Engineering
“Shifting to the Managed Service plan has taken the pressure off. Ultra IT helped us seamlessly move from Dropbox to Sharepoint, which meant increased ease of using our folders, plus increased security. They also helped us streamline our email, with purchasing hardware and with moving to 365. In the past, if we had an IT issue I would panic. Now I know that I can just contact the team at Ultra, and they are so fast and efficient and just sort out everything, which is a great comfort”
I would definitely recommend Ultra IT as your Managed Service Provider.”
Christine Sanford – Company Financial Officer
In Summary
A Managed Service Plan just makes good business sense. We will be talking to all of our clients individually about your specific needs and what plan is the best for you in the upcoming months. As always, if you have any queries please do not hesitate to reach out to us here.