Focus on your Business Leave IT to us!
“…It is insurance that if your work productivity stops due to a computer malfunction, we have peace of mind…”Managed IT Services
Top 5 questions businesses ask when researching IT support and service provider:- What is Managed IT service
- Why does my business need Managed IT Service?
- What issues will Managed IT Service fix for my businesses?
- How much will it cost?
- Are there any alternatives to Managed IT Services? Are they any good?
What is Managed IT Service and why does my business need one?
Working for a small business, you can be asked to wear many hats. Even if one of your many roles is not IT, you may need to review your business technology or cybersecurity preparations.
It is easy to think cybersecurity is someone else’s responsibility, but IT may not be getting the attention it deserves, and that could be damaging to the business, your reputation, and your identity.
Take a moment to think about your business and the ways in which you protect your success. Do you have insurance? Probably. You might have insurance for your office space and equipment. How about business insurance? You may have that to avoid paying out-of-pocket for damages, accidents, or lawsuits.
Well, when thinking about whether a Managed IT Service Provider (MSP) is worth the cost, you might want to think of this as technology insurance. An MSP can ensure that you have tech support available. They can help keep your technology reliable and resilient. Remember, technology is the backbone of your business.
Businesses, big or small, want to be as productive as possible. Productivity is achieved in many ways. While we cannot list all the possible ways to achieve productivity, here are few examples:
- By hiring appropriate talent
- By improving performance
- Optimizing existing processes
- Outsourcing certain processes that theoretically can be done in house, but most businesses will look to hire external professionals or businesses.
- For e.g., Payroll companies provides payroll related services and protect the businesses from missed HR steps
- Managed IT Services company, such as Advise IT Solutions, provides IT support services to small businesses so that they can focus on what they do best.
What IT issues can Advise IT Solutions address for small businesses?
One STOP shop
One stop for all covered IT related issues.
One Fee
One monthly fee for all covered IT issues.
Single point of contact
Employees do not have to contact their managers for IT issues. Freeing them to manage business issues.
Proactive and Reactive IT support
Fix most IT issues proactively. Technologies such as network services fails all the time and if it does break, fix the covered issue reactively without additional billing [ Read More ]
Plan Safeguards Against Cyberattacks
A large part of proactive service means ensuring your systems are protected against threat. Cyber-attacks are on the rise, so your business needs to be on constant guard. Our technician can ensure your systems are patched across your entire network, running the latest virus scans, and keeping up with latest cyberattacks and corresponding patching that goes with it. [ Read More ]
Helpdesk Support
Call us for covered IT issues any number of times a month. How about 50x, 100x… same monthly price. This is an addition to proactive work we do behind the scenes. [ Read More ]
Onsite and Remote Support
We fix most issues remotely ensuring that business receive the support immediately instead of having a technician drive down to our client’s site causing significant downtime for business or their users. However, if an issue cannot be resolved remotely, a technician will be dispatched to fix at onsite without additional billing. [ Read More ]
Remote Worker
In this COVID era, work from home is no longer nice to have benefit for employees, but it is a necessity in this day and age. Whether you provide company laptops to employees, or they use their own laptops, securely accessing company resources is paramount. [ Read More ]
Allow You to Focus
Business owners and managers can focus on their business while IT support is managed by us [ Read More ]
Minimize IT Downtime
Business downtime is costly. It can cause loss of revenue, remediation costs, customer frustration, compliance and legal issues, brand reputation and employee morale among other things. [ Read More ]
IT Infrastructure Management
We manage your network, hardware, software, system patching, etc.
Email Management
If your emails are on Office 365 or Google Workspace, we manage that for you. Other third-party professional email systems can also be managed if required.[ Read More ]
Spam Filtering
Regularly monitoring, blocking, and terminating spams or phishing attacks can reduce the attack surface.[ Read More ]
Email Backup
Email communication is ubiquitous and most if not, all business communications happen via email. Contrary to the popular misconception, Microsoft Office 365 or Google Workspace emails are not by automatically backed up by the company. [ Read More ]
Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
As we established, no matter how stable the technology is, it will fail at some point. Backing up data consistently and ensuring the backup is recoverable are important tasks that must be completely regularly.[ Read More ]
Vendor Management
Does this sound familiar? Because of lack of business owner’s IT knowledge, HP printer support blames the fax issue on phone company while phone company blames HP. Who is correct? Advise IT Solutions will deal with both providers and since we understand your network, we can resolve this conflict with reason. No finger pointing! [ Read More ]
Provide Technology Consulting
Often, businesses want to brainstorm new or existing technology and how it will help the company bottom line. We provide free consultations to our clients and in some cases, even perform proof of concept free of cost. [ Read More ]
Voice Over IP
features as compared to traditional phone lines features as compared to traditional phone lines, conduct your business wherever you are. No more waiting for front desk to pass on important messages.[ Read More ]
What IT issues can Advise IT Solutions address for small businesses?
In the early days of Managed IT Services, IT companies used to create packages such as Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. However, actual IT needs never aligned with any of these bundles. There would always be a situation, where business would want Silver along with some aspect of gold bundle.
Instead, Advise IT Solutions assesses the small business’ IT needs in following broad areas and then provides one Monthly IT Price to manage. That way businesses do not pay for bells and whistles they do not need. This also ensures, the business pay the same monthly fee unless new changes are required or introduced.
- Cybersecurity needs of the business.
- Number of users and devices.
- Size of the IT network.
- Age of the network.
- Manufacturer warranty available on the hardware and software.
- Hardware and Software that make up the network.
- Proposed hardware and software replacement.
- Skills needed to manage.
- Helpdesk support needs.
- Technical know-how in the business (in house IT person etc.).
- Proactive monitoring and management resources.
- Regulations to comply.
- Amount of data that is handled by the business.
- Data backup and disaster management
- Any Line of Business application management.
- Any other non-standard Hardware or Software management needs.
- Cloud storage management
- Cloud applications and Cloud Services
- Vendor Management
- Email Management
- Office 365 and Google Workspace Management.
- VOIP Management
- Website, SEO and SMM Management.
Alternatives to Managed IT Services
A la Carte services also known as Break-Fix
Break-Fix is the IT support you receive when you contact a technician by searching on the internet, after equipment or services have broken down. Great for individuals, residential customers, and startups in their first weeks of operation.
Advantages
- Pay as you go.
- Techs as capable as our Techs as many of them start their career with Break-Fix.
- Hourly billing.
- Great for minor IT issues.
- Can perform certain services on fixed cost.
- Great where business owner is also IT savvy.
Disadvantages
- Budgeting impossible.
- IT Support must be scheduled because of prior commitment, often in days if not weeks.
- Tech’s experience limited.
- Lack knowledge about how your business functions.
- Lack IT system knowledge used in your business.
- Huge hourly bills because often fixes/updates take time.
- Fix only issues at hand. No proactive resolution to other IT issues.
Hire an IT technician
Hiring your own IT tech is always a solution. Businesses hire an IT tech as 1099 or W2 employee.
Advantages
- Available at moment’s notice.
- Can perform other functions in addition to IT support.
- Implement solutions quickly.
- Great for minor IT issues.
- Techs as capable just like Break-Fix techs.
- Great for businesses with large IT budget.
Disadvantages
- IT skills not as varied as Managed IT techs.
- Experience limited to current IT systems that is been managed.
- Provide payroll, HR, employee management, benefits, and other responsibilities that comes with employee management.
- May not have enough IT work to justify hours.
Hybrid of Managed IT Services and in-house IT Technician
In this scenario, business have their own IT support but use Advise IT Solutions to provide subset of IT support.
Advantages
- Can be budgeted.
- Dependency on in-house IT is offset by Managed IT Services.
- Can be made very efficient.
Disadvantages
- Provide payroll, HR, employee management, benefits, and other responsibilities that comes with employee management.
- Need to ensure unambiguous understanding of in-house IT support and Advise IT Solutions’ roles. So, there is no overlap or miscommunication.
- IT issues may fall through the cracks.
TESTIMONIALS
- “…It is insurance that if your work productivity stops due to a computer malfunction, we have peace of mind…”
- “…They have managed to create a professional and super informative support system…”
- “…When COVID-19 pandemic hit, they set up our employees to work from home, at no additional cost.”
- “…They have given my business amazing service…”
TEAM
Our team believes in providing service with the following in mind and we are extremely proud that we have not heard a single concern from our clients:- We remote in, we fix, and we leave. We protect your data, but we don’t need to see your data.
- Take data privacy seriously and are fanatics about that.
- We are courteous and treat well not just the owners of the business, but their employees too with the utmost respect.
SAMPLE OUTCOMES
During the difficult year of 2020, we are happy to help our clients in various ways including:- Within two days, migrated a non-profit to work from home during early 2020 COVID days.
- Similarly assisted a Mental Health Clinic during COVID in early 2020.
- Helped customers save $1,500 a month on phone systems.
- Connect two remote offices to headquarters.
Get your Virtual IT Team. Contact us to schedule a FREE Network Assessment today!
Contact us for a Free IT Assessment!
Whether you are looking for a new IT Services company OR just want to brainstorm if your IT is as productive as your business, please reach out to us. No obligations. Only information.Download our eBook to learn more about Break Fix vs. Managed Services.
Break-Fix vs. Managed Services: Why Smart Business Owner are Changing their Approach to IT
Many businesses only call a technician after something breaks, but this is the most expensive way to manage your IT. Download our FREE eBook how to Managed Services can:- Reduce business downtime
- Reduce the chances of major data loss
- Save you money