How Can SMART Managed Services Provide Small Businesses With an Edge in 2022?

You’ve heard of SMART TVs and SMART cars, but what about IT-managed services with SMART capabilities? SMART IT managed solutions provide users with more control over how they outsource IT tasks to a third-party service provider, allowing for more interconnectivity, customization, and accountability. Companies have more autonomy when it comes to managing their IT responsibilities and can better measure the success of their managed services provider (MSP).

In this guide, learn how SMART managed services provide small businesses with a competitive edge.

Traditional IT Managed Services

The traditional IT managed services model involves small businesses outsourcing IT tasks to a third party to reduce workloads or improve productivity [1]. An MSP provides generic services such as security, disaster management, cloud configuration, and remote monitoring of software and hardware in exchange for a monthly service fee.

The problem with this model is that it provides small businesses with little flexibility, customization, or control. MSPs typically provide services to multiple clients simultaneously without considering each client’s specific requirements, pain points, and strategic goals. For example, an MSP might monitor all of its clients’ hardware using the same tools and techniques. Each client receives exactly the same generic service regardless of their respective needs. It’s also difficult to measure the success of an MSP.

What are SMART Managed Services?

In an MSP context, SMART stands for:

Strategic planning
Monitoring
Actively maintain
Robust Support
Track results

It’s a unique approach to IT managed services that ensures small businesses truly understand the objectives of an MSP and how they measure success [2].

Strategic Planning

Your MSP meets with you regularly to review your business initiatives and growth objectives. With a technology plan in place, you can achieve your specific business objectives when outsourcing IT responsibilities to a third-party provider.

Monitoring

Your MSP proactively monitors all components of your IT ecosystem, including networks, firewalls, servers, and workstations. Proactive management reduces risk by identifying any security issues before they impact your business. Your MSP can even provide network penetration testing for more enhanced security.

Actively Maintain

Your MSP updates your systems with the latest system and security patches, monitors backups, deletes unwanted temporary files, and executes other security tasks that reduce downtime, data breaches, and other security-related issues in your small business.

Robust Support

Your MSP assigns you a support team led by a primary engineer so you have a single point of contact for any IT-related problems. Instead of a ‘generic’ technology expert, you can communicate with a specialist who understands the specific technologies in your stack.

Track Results

By reviewing results with your MSP, you can ensure the service provider is meeting expectations and executing your technology plan successfully. You can refine our partnership and get more value from your investment.

SMART MSPs use technologies that track and analyze data to provide businesses with bespoke IT solutions based on their behavior, objectives, and requirements. The result? Businesses get more value when outsourcing IT tasks to managed service providers.

Why are SMART Managed Services Worth Your Investment?

SMART managed services provide businesses with more freedom when managing and outsourcing their IT commitments. Data is the lifeblood of these services, with analytics tools providing real-time insights into IT assets so businesses can make more informed decisions. For example, an MSP specializing in SMART managed services like Artemis IT might use tools that generate metrics about a client’s cloud usage patterns. A business can use these metrics to improve cloud efficiencies or invest in new cloud technologies.

Another facet of SMART managed services is interconnectivity. Just like a SMART coffee maker connects with other devices to monitor usage and behavioral patterns, SMART managed services improve interconnectivity within an IT infrastructure by analyzing data from hardware, software, networks, data centers, servers, and other components of a company’s IT ecosystem. Again, this differs from the traditional IT managed services model, where services from MSPs often exist in silos [3]. An MSP might monitor data centers and servers individually, for example, instead of managing a company’s IT architecture holistically.

By connecting their technologies and networks and automating many of the tasks associated with IT management, small businesses can get a competitive edge over other companies. They get a 360-degree view of their IT architecture, allowing them to solve problems such as downtime or data breaches in a quicker time frame.

Today, many IT managed service providers look the same. They take care of all the IT tasks that small companies don’t have the resources to complete, but there’s little scope for customization or interconnectivity. The SMART approach provides these businesses with a competitive edge by tracking and analyzing data and delivering bespoke IT solutions that provide greater value.

Learn more about how Artemis IT can help your business IT needs.