Coleman Technologies Blog

The entire premise of managed IT services is that they can save your business money, but in what specific ways does working with us make your budget more predictable? It’s really quite simple, and it encompasses three primary pillars: an established level of service, proactive maintenance and management, and the reliability and access to expertise that might otherwise put a stopper on your business’ potential.

We’ll be examining these specific ways that working with a managed service provider allows you to factor in clear expectations for IT services month-to-month.

The Service Level Agreement (SLA)

When you work with a good managed service provider like Coleman Technologies, you are generally entering into what is called a service level agreement. This service level agreement consists of the various products, services, and support you can expect from your provider month-to-month. You pay a convenient and easily budgetable amount for services rendered. It doesn’t get much easier than this. With technology being such a volatile and unpredictable factor for many businesses, the steadiness offered by an MSP is a breath of fresh air.

The Power of Proactive

One of the worst things that can happen to any business is a hardware failure. Not only do you have to replace the technology that breaks down, but you have to eat the costs associated with downtime, too. No one likes paying people for time when they aren’t getting anything of value done. While it might seem like hardware failure comes out of the blue, this is far from the truth. In most cases, technology issues like these can be predicted, which is exactly what a managed service provider does with proactive monitoring and maintenance. With the right tools and expertise, you can address potential IT issues before they cause downtime.

Reliable and Affordable Access to Expertise

If you have the good fortune of employing an IT technician in-house, then chances are you are all too familiar with the struggles of finding qualified talent. Instead of gambling on the local talent pool, you can instead get all of the IT expertise you need through a managed service provider and their network of skilled and trusted professionals. It’s a great way to get value out of your investment without adding an extra salary or two to your budget.

Make Your IT Spending More Predictable with Managed Services

Are you sick of not knowing how much capital you need to commit to your technology month-to-month? If so, Coleman Technologies is happy to help you streamline your spending with managed IT services. We’ll work with you to create an agreement that addresses all of your major technology management pain points. To learn more, call us today at (604) 513-9428.

IT support is a must for the modern business. Whether you have an internal IT administrator, a team of technicians on staff, or you outsource your management, you need to ensure that your business has the support and service needed to keep your business’ technology running efficiently. 

The technology that organizations use for business hasn’t really changed much over the past few decades unless you count the emerging technologies that some organizations have rolled out recently such as AI tools and dynamic IoT technologies. In this week’s blog, we will go over how organizations have shifted their IT support structure to get more value for their business.

A Little Background

For decades businesses that depended on technology had three options: They could hire technology professionals to help deploy tools and manage the organization’s technology; they could wait until their technology breaks and get it fixed by an outside break/fix vendor; or they could just have their regular employees troubleshoot problems as they arise. Let’s go through each option to see why demand has grown for affordable outsourced IT support.

Hiring Internal IT Professionals

This option is still used by a lot of organizations. Frankly, if your organization can afford it, it is never a bad idea to have an internal IT professional at the ready to help you fix problems, create strategy, and onboard new tools. But, there's the rub: can you afford it? The average IT technician makes over $50,000 per year, with some with years of useful experience getting paid 50-to-100 percent more than that. It can be a major expense to hire new IT talent and even then you only have one person handling all the technology issues. It can be a bit much.

Waiting for Technology to Break

This was the preferred method for many organizations for years. Basically, technology will work great for a while, then it will break. It isn’t much different today. Once there was a broken computer/printer/router etc., you would take it to a break/fix vendor and then get it back in the rotation after a few days away. This seems reasonable, until you take into consideration the money you aren’t making as you wait to get your technology back. Downtime can cost any business a lot of money, and do so very rapidly. By waiting to get your technology back, you are basically succumbing to the downtime your company has to deal with. No good.

Employee Troubleshooting

Probably the riskiest strategy of them all is to allow your staff to troubleshoot problems on their own. This not only will surely cause a lot of downtime, but it will likely have lasting impacts on your business’ ability to effectively do the things it needs to do to generate revenue. This subset of businesses is the most likely to have devastating technology issues bring down their whole company. 

A Better Strategy

For the past decade many businesses have taken advantage of a better strategy: Managed IT services. This service effectively replaces your IT management strategy with a team of technicians that work remotely to manage your business’ IT with state-of-the-art monitoring and management software. The benefit of this is to have your technology constantly monitored for threats and underperformance so that technicians can fix issues with these systems before they can become profit-sapping problems. 

This form of proactive IT management is only one of the numerous beneficial services that come with a comprehensive managed IT services contract. Some of the other features include:

• Expert technicians - You know those technicians making $80-to-$100K per year because of their field experience? Those are the level of technicians that typically run proactive services at managed IT service providers. You will get to work with a team of technicians and consultants that know how technology fits into your business, and what needs to happen to get it to that point. 
• Budgetable monthly payment - With Managed IT, you know exactly how much your technology support costs are beforehand. 
• Vendor management - You may be surprised just how much time away from your business your vendors cause you to take. Knowledgeable consultants can manage your IT vendor relationships for you to ensure that you have a professional perspective working for your business.
• Backup and Disaster Recovery - The BDR service backs up your company’s crucial data and applications to ensure that if something goes wrong, you have an up-to-date backup of the data you need to keep your business running.
• Hardware support - If something goes wrong and our technicians can’t fix it remotely, we will come onsite to ensure that your hardware is fixed and you can get back to business fast. 

The whole point is that managed services providers do things remotely and proactively so that you don’t have to see massive maintenance costs. If you would like to learn more about getting your business the technology support and management it needs, give Coleman Technologies a call at (604) 513-9428.

How much does your business rely on technology to keep your organization running forward? As business technology becomes more complex, it’s becoming increasingly popular for organizations to have their own internal IT departments to manage and maintain it. Yet, small businesses don’t often have the necessary funds for such a feat. How can your company afford quality IT service? You can start by pursuing managed IT solutions from a managed service provider.

Unlike break-fix IT solutions, which depend on your technology breaking down, managed IT solutions aim to keep your technology in proper working order, as well as take action to proactively treat issues before they become long-term problems. Here are some of the best ways that managed IT can help your organization take better advantage of its technology.

Guaranteeing Flexibility

Let’s say that you choose to hire more employees for a specific department of your business. This means that you have more users, which can lead to more software licenses needed, more email accounts to archive, more endpoints to secure, and much more. Basically, as your workforce needs change, so too must your managed IT service agreement. Coleman Technologies offers scalable solutions that can be customized to fit the needs of your business.

Supplementing In-House Maintenance

Let’s say that you do have an in-house technician or a small group of workers dedicated to IT maintenance. They might be able to get most of their work done, but generally speaking, your in-house technicians probably have their hands full. They might have their hands full with acting as help desk support, or they might be too busy maintaining the status quo to help the everyday worker with their technology. A managed IT provider helps to augment and work beside your in-house team to create greater success for your organization as a whole.

Working with Your Vendors

You work with a lot of vendors to give your company the access to the products your organization needs to be successful. This includes hardware vendors for your workstations and server units, software developers for all of your productivity suite needs, and any other service providers that you have. Reaching out to all of these can be time-consuming, which is why managed service providers like Coleman Technologies offer vendor management services to create a single point of contact to keep your attention on your business and not your vendors.

Improving Operational Efficiency

Your business will generally function better by working with a managed service provider. The reason for this is simple: hands-off IT maintenance that takes up little, if any, of your time. Coleman Technologies can remotely monitor and maintain your business’ technology infrastructure to provide as much of a hands-off approach to IT maintenance as you can get. To learn more about what Coleman Technologies can do for your business, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.