One of the biggest challenges for any small business is gaining access to powerful, modern technologies that will allow them to tap into an ever more digital customer base. It goes without saying that a business that doesn’t use the internet, whether to host a well built website or craft an effective social media presence, is going to have a hard time succeeding in a world where more and more customers want to buy products online. As eMarketer writes, web users across the world will spend $1.5 trillion online in 2014. If your small business doesn’t have the technology it needs to tap into that increased revenue stream, how can you hope to succeed? Managed service providers can give your company the tools it needs to tap into record eCommerce levels in 2014 and beyond.
What Are Managed Services?
Managed services, as defined by Tech Target, is the term used for any application, service, or equipment provided as part of an IT outsourcing plan with a third-party provider. Managed service providers specialize in providing these services to enterprise-sized clients, private residences, and small business owners, like you.
Popular Services Offered by Managed Services Teams
- Website Hosting Service
- VoIP
The best managed service providers are known for offering their clients website hosting and design services that can actually help to generate business. Reputable services offer website uptime of 99.9%, meaning that when your customers want to visit your website and make a purchase, they can visit your page without any trouble.
One of the most useful services offered by managed service providers, as About.com suggests, is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service. VoIP is known to be far more cost-effective than other telephony services, while offering greater communications capacity, unified communications functionality, and more.
What Are the Benefits of Using Managed IT Services?
It would take far too long to detail all of the benefits of switching to managed service providers. In a nutshell, as SmallBusinessComputing.com writes, using small business IT services from managed service providers offers small businesses, like yours, all of the most modern, most powerful business technologies, from VoIP to web hosting to data management, without all the cost. In effect, this allows you all the IT power of a much larger company on your small business budget, meaning you can more effectively compete.
Has your business made the jump to managed IT? What have your experiences been like so far? Let us know in the comments below! Read more blogs like this.
