When a startup business begins to experience rapid growth, it’s an exciting yet delicate time. The company leadership needs to staff up quickly, ensuring the best talent while also keeping in mind its bottom line. But, how can a business’s day-to-day functions, such as IT support, be maintained without breaking the bank? Technology is increasing in complexity, and at a faster rate than ever before. Limited resources and strained budgets, coupled with expanding needs, are limiting how small IT teams can handle all their daily tasks and maintenance. For startups that don’t have the resources or staff to handle these tasks, let alone stay up-to-date with the latest technology, partnering with a managed service provider (MSP) that offers round-the-clock support to manage their overall IT infrastructure efficiently and cost effectively is often their best option.
There are a wide range of advantages to partnering with MSPs. Perhaps one of the most crucial for fast growing startups is saved time and money. With time and resources being stretched during a rapid growth period, outsourcing daily IT tasks such as security updates and patches allows business leaders to focus on sales, processes and goals – rather than speed of the network. At the same time, MSPs have dedicated resources specialized in supporting data centers and email archiving services; where smaller businesses will not. MSPs are also able to scale support quickly as the company hits growth landmarks, enabling the business to receive the same level of dedicated service no matter its size. This is also a budget saver as management will not need to hire or train new IT staff upfront to effectively support the growing IT infrastructure.
In addition to having the ability to scale services promptly, MSPs offer startups an extended bench of qualified IT experts. Given today’s technology landscape, a small company will not have the budget to hire team members well-versed in the breadth of IT tasks needed. These tasks can include the ability to manage or maintain a growing infrastructure, support the use of mobile devices, analyze and securely store company data and keep pace with technology advancements. This range and variety of tasks, which often take specific skills, can be too diverse for an individual employee to expertly handle.
Finding the skills or resources to effectively manage a small business's IT risk is another area of concern. With cyberattacks such as phishing and ransomware on the rise, safeguarding a company’s data and infrastructure is a full-time job. MSPs offer remote monitoring to manage this responsibility 24x7x365. They also offer a host of other services to manage IT risk, including disaster recovery, so that a business can quickly get up and running should it fall victim to a cyberattack or other natural disaster that can cause an outage.
From managing daily tasks such as software updates and email archiving, to bolstering a small business’s cyber defense, MSPs support the IT infrastructure of growing businesses – whether a startup or small- to medium-sized business – cost effectively and efficiently. By leveraging a MSP and outsourcing critical IT tasks, a company can quickly staff up, enabling it to focus on other core business priorities that will help it to continue to grow.
With over 15 years of experience, Mike has managed infrastructure teams and projects for 10 years. At CGS, he is responsible for aligning customers' technology initiatives with business outcomes, helping to drive revenue and reduce costs.