There’s a reason why I don’t do my own taxes. Not only does the boredom make me weepy, but the frustration is actually crippling. I am so outside of my depth that attempting to limp through the process of itemizing and logging deductions, praying that I don’t do it all wrong and end up without a return, causes me physical pain.
Why would I even try to do it myself? I don’t have the time, stamina, or knowhow, and I know that by doing it all myself, I’m taking a risk that may cost me money.
I can tell you that at the time, I thought I was saving money. I thought that by doing it all myself, I’d have some sort of edge, but that ultimately wasn’t the case. In the end, paying someone much more capable to carry the burden for me provided the most benefit toward my peace of mind, sanity, and wallet.
How does this relate to managed services?
You can probably guess where I’m going with this.
Why, as a busy business owner, would you even consider managing your own servers, their infrastructure, maintenance, and physical security? The fact is, you can’t conceive of the risk you’re taking until you hear the horror stories of businesses who tried to do it all themselves and suffered hardware failure, downtime, and data loss, or worse, you experience those pitfalls yourself.
Your reason may be the same as mine when I tried to do my own taxes: it’ll all be worth it if I save some money. Well, wrong.
“But I know what I’m doing. Why shouldn’t I just do it myself?”
So you used to be a sysadmin? You still shouldn’t be running your own servers, especially as your business starts to grow and your infrastructure expands. In fact, if you used to be a sysadmin or have serviceable IT knowledge, I should be preaching to the choir right now. You understand the necessity for delegation.
Reasons to contract with a managed services plan, in a nutshell.
- Upgrading to new tech
This is a hefty endeavor and not a task you want to take on yourself. There’s no shame in entrusting this to the experts. - Managing multi-vendor, multi-technology
Add up all the software that goes into running your business and you’ll see why converging and managing these systems should be delegated. - Increased personnel efficiency
Don’t burden your everyday IT guys with the task of server management. Sysadmins are not standard IT and vice versa. In the end you’ll only squander your resources by blurring job roles in this way. - Increased agility and security
You’ll find yourself and your business capable of so much more ingenuity, progress, and efficiency with a managed service product running your back and frontend systems. - Minimize system vulnerabilities and risk
Having a designated team relegated solely to the monitoring and upkeep of your precious servers will mitigate untold risk to your bottom line.
What’s keeping you from purchasing managed services?
Sources
Tonge, Steve. “Five Reasons Why Managed Services Help with IT-Business Alignment.” http://blog.unify.com/2012/08/five-reasons-why-managed-services-help-with-it-business-alignment/. (September 12, 2014.)
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