How Can Managed IT Services Drive Your Digital Transformation?
As businesses look to get a leg up on their competitors, many are turning to external managed IT companies to help them adopt digital solutions to gain a competitive advantage.
According to its 2024 global outsourcing survey, Deloitte estimates that 71 percent of organizations outsource their IT functions to managed IT service providers (MSPs) to boost their network performance, access advanced resources and skilled personnel, increase efficiency, and reduce costs.
In fact, businesses outsourcing their IT support can see 40 to 60 percent cost savings compared to maintaining an internal IT team, according to the Deloitte report.
Corporations across a wide spectrum of industries have enlisted the expertise of managed IT service providers (MSPs) to steer their digital transformation, including companies like Amazon, Netflix, Walmart, Sephora, Goldman Sachs, IKEA, Adobe, Siemens, and Lego.
Given that these multinational enterprises have successfully used MSPs to manage their IT modernization efforts, does it make sense for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) like yours to follow suit?
In this article, we’ll explore some of the ways in which managed IT support has helped these large corporations optimize their business performance and boost their profitability.
After reading this article, you’ll learn how managed IT services can help you achieve a digital transformation to gain a competitive advantage, regardless of your organization’s size. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to better decide if managed IT support is right for your business.
What Are Some Real-World MSP-Led Digital Transformation Examples?
Some of the world’s largest companies have relied on the expert guidance of outside managed IT companies to help them align their business objectives and IT issues.
Here are three examples:
1. Walmart
Used managed IT to incorporate advanced e-commerce software to improve its logistics operations to make the company more competitive in the online retail shopping space.
2. Nike
Used managed IT to migrate to the cloud to be able to provide an improved, personalized customer online shopping experience.
3. Starbucks
Used managed IT providers to help implement AI-backed software to better analyze data, identify problems, and improve supply chain efficiency.
Related Article: Planning For The Future: 7 Steps To Create An Effective IT Budget
How Can You Leverage Your Technology With MSP Support?
As we’ve shown above, businesses recognize that in today’s technology-driven world, you either adapt or get left behind.
That’s why a growing number of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are embracing new and emerging technologies and turning to managed IT providers to design and implement a comprehensive IT strategy.
6 Benefits of using managed IT support for digital optimization:
1. Enhance operational efficiency
Businesses can streamline their operations and increase productivity with the right investments in their software programs, hardware, and other resources.
An MSP can conduct an audit of your entire IT environment to identify all users, devices, applications, processes, and systems and analyze how they connect to your network.
This inventory assessment will also help determine the life expectancy of your desktops, laptops, servers, and other equipment.
Your MSP can then use this data to develop a strategic IT plan that aligns your current technology needs and long-term business objectives.
2. Strengthen security posture
An MSP can conduct a gap analysis to detect potential vulnerabilities and security weaknesses within your IT infrastructure.
With this information, your provider can implement a comprehensive stack of robust security tools, policies, and practices to help safeguard your sensitive data and protect your business.
A managed IT provider can also develop and implement an incident response plan (IRP) in the event of a security incident.
Related Article: Why You Need An Incident Response Plan Before A Cyber Incident Happens
3. Provide increased flexibility
By implementing advanced technology, an MSP can help your business become more competitive.
Improved data analytics and automated processes will allow businesses to improve their response times to changes in the market to quickly launch new products and services.
4. Boost profitability
A digital transformation can help businesses streamline their operations, maximize resources, and scale effectively as the business grows—all of which helps improve the bottom line.
Managed IT support can provide expert, strategic guidance to help you modernize your IT systems so you get the most for your money.
Related Article: Gain A Competitive Edge: Strategic vCIO And TAM Support in Managed IT
5. Foster collaboration
Using today’s technology solutions, businesses have even more ways of communicating and exchanging information with their employees, customers, vendors, and partners.
As part of their suite of services, MSPs offer managed communications services to keep you connected to your important stakeholders.
6. Gain a competitive advantage
Managed IT services can help businesses leverage their technology to stand out from the pack and gain a competitive edge.
Organizations are increasingly adopting the latest technologies, such as cloud services, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI), to safeguard their data and systems and grow their business.
Related Article: On-Prem To Cloud Migration Strategies: 6 Steps For A Smooth Process
MSPs offer a suite of comprehensive, state-of-the-art technologies and broad IT expertise to increase uptime, mitigate security risks, and improve business productivity.
What’s The Bottom Line With Using Managed IT To Optimize Technology?
The global managed IT services market is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 13.6% from 2023 to 2030 to reach $731 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research.
After reading this article, you now understand the role managed IT services is playing behind the scenes to shape the global digital transformation.
Ultimately, organizations that choose to work with an external managed IT company instantly gain a deep bench of IT professionals with extensive technical expertise who can help empower their business through strategic technology investments—without the expense of having to establish a comparable in-house team.
An MSP works to gain a bird’s-eye view of your entire IT environment to develop and implement a proactive IT plan with the right software, hardware, personnel, and other tools you need to drive your business into the future.
Those IT solutions will help ensure that your business continues to run smoothly, efficiently, and securely.
You also gain peace of mind in not having to worry about managing your entire IT infrastructure yourself, so that you can concentrate on running your business.
At Kelser, we have decades of experience successfully helping to solve the IT pain points of businesses of all sizes. If you’d like to learn more about what to expect when partnering with Kelser, read The Kelser Way: Our Approach To Managed IT Services.
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Need more information about what you’d be getting for your money with managed IT services, read on to find out the true ROI of managed IT services.
Curious about how much managed IT may cost your business? Use our pricing calculator to get an immediate, no-obligation estimate.