Small and midsized businesses do not always have the capacity to completely handle their IT resources properly and most of the time, they like to outsource the work to a Managed Service Provider (MSP) so that they could have a little extra help. Vince Plaza is the IT Vice President a company that deals with insourcing IT management services. In an interview with him, he clarifies how small and midsize businesses also known as (SMBs) could get the most out of their service providers. The critical point he noted included:
1. The stakeholder should develop a trustworthy relation with the MSP. Vince insisted that since companies outsource their IT resources so that they can focus on other resources that the company has, it is important for the customer company not to completely ignore the IT resources but keep in touch with the potential service providers by asking the a lot of questions. This will help build the trust needed. The type of questions that should be asked include what extra services the provider has, the kind of infrastructure they use, whether their written agreement are elaborate and whether they support current advanced technologies such as desktop virtualization.
2. Vince urged SMBs to treat their MSP like a department under the company and effectively communicate with the IT managed service provider. Although it shouldn’t be as frequent as it may bug the provider, the company should find a way of talking to them even about small things in the company such as managerial changes, plans the company has and any other information that may seemingly affect the MSP. This enables the MSP to move concurrently with the company instead of having to be behind and catch-up each time there are changes within the business.
3. As most companies outsource the services since they do not have an IT department, others may at that time of hiring a MSP, have an IT department, even if it is not as developed. Plaza insisted the importance of letting the IT staff that was present that their job still is secure. This, he says, can be done by being upfront with the MSP on how they will work hand in hand with the existing staff.
4. Since MSPs do their best to secure a business’ data, Plaza went on to insist how important it is for the business to also keep security as a priority. This, he elaborates, could help the MSP put the resources it could use in troubleshooting security problems causes within the organization into other use that could be of more benefit to the business.
