Whether lacking the funds or the manpower, small businesses often fall back on outsourcing their IT support to a preoccupied employee, under-qualified IT contractor working on the cheap-end, or neglect the management of their technology altogether. That’s why managed IT support is a popular choice among companies who are largely unable to maintain their own IT staff. Managed IT support professionals are just that – certified experts whose aim is to reduce the downtime and costs associated with keeping technology perpetually up-to-date and running smoothly. In addition to the immediate and long-term cost-savings of managed IT support– here are 5 more benefits.

Managed IT Support Reduces Downtime Small businesses have an unfortunate tendency to keep their in-house IT departments small in a misguided effort to minimize costs. However, studies show that a lack of IT management directly results in an increase in costs across the board among small business – largely hidden costs associated with downtime due to network disruption and process inefficiency. A small department or one-man team standing in as a specialist can quickly become inundated with little day-to-day maintenance issues which leads to the backlogging of simple-to-solve problems. Any unsolved problem has the potential to leave the employees experiencing the issue incapacitated. In 2013, the Aberdeen Group reported an average of $8580 lost to misspent labor for every hour of network disruption experienced. Managed IT support companies eliminate downtime significantly and a direct result cost.

Managed IT Support Ensures Timely Updates In-house IT departments have trouble deploying updates in a timely manner, simply due to the lack of manpower and resources. Not all employees and their tools are made alike: departments differ in their hardware and software needs and often patches and updates roll out on an irregular schedule. It’s a lot to keep track of and the consequences of failing to install a patch in time have the potential to prove costly in the long run. Remember the Heartbleed bug? Experts estimate that that single vulnerability alone cost businesses tens of millions of dollars to lost productivity as a result of having to update all their systems. Furthermore, Gartner reports the average cost of data breaches to small businesses reached $6.53 million in 2015. A managed IT support company will deploy and automate all of the necessary system updates and security precautions across throughout the entire infrastructure of a company. The idea is to constantly keep system up-to-date ahead of time – again, eliminating downtime.

Managed IT Support Increases Business Efficiency Did you know that most small IT problems can be solved remotely? The majority of IT work falls under the category of routine and day-to-day maintenance. That’s why financially-speaking, it makes sense to offload IT work on a third party: managed IT support offers scalability and availability to small business who need help on an as-needed basis. This results in cost savings during the times where only maintenance is being performed. Plus, managed IT support providers are the absolute experts when it comes to preempting catastrophe and creating contingency plans in the event of an unlikely flood or another, unforeseen Heartbleed-like bug. Expect a constant, uninterrupted workflow thanks to managed IT support – regardless of the scale of the services deployed.

Managed IT Support Prevents Hardware Failure Managed IT support companies have large customer bases which naturally lead to exposure to a wide range of hardware and software programs – both old and new. With such a large sample size under their belt, managed IT support providers are better able to anticipate and deal with impending hardware failures, which in turn, allows them to better prepare you for any issues that may arise from such failures. The end result of course is a dramatic reduction in downtime and ideally, the would-be cost of replacement.

Managed IT Providers Offer the Best Support Rest-assured that managed IT companies recruit top IT technicians and managers, and their collected talent pool dwarfs most in-house IT teams. As a result, the support you receive is as good as any in-house team you could assemble, if not better. A small business which has settled relegating the job to an employee whose focus lies elsewhere or which relies on an independent contractor to the get the job done on their own time – is truly better off enlisting the help of a managed It support team. For more information on other hidden costs associated with a lack of managed IT support – plus, to learn additional benefits, check out latest whitepaper here.