Pronix Fully Managed IT Services – We Run Your Business Tech For You

Today’s marketplace is seeing a shortage of highly skilled IT service professionals. As a result, small to mid-size companies all across the country are struggling to maintain, manage, and secure their data and workflow.

Fully Managed IT Services is the answer to this market challenge whether you are in Houston Texas or Los Angeles, California.

Managed IT Service Providers – essentially outsourced IT teams – provide a comprehensive IT care service within a set, subscription fee model. Within the Fully Managed IT Services model, your business gets access to all the tech support, security, management, and maintenance you need while paying a predictable monthly fee.

Let’s Talk About Outsourcing Your IT Work to a Managed Services Provider

A Managed IT Service Provider in Houston Texas like Pronix IT Helpdesk Outsourcing Solutions is a third-party organization that monitors and manages a range of all your IT processes and functions. Companies like yours partner with MSPs to gain the benefits of:

• decreased technology costs
• efficiencies of scale
• availability of specialized IT skills
• increased security
• lower downtime
• reduced operational costs

Since their introduction in the 1990’s MSPs have expanded their offerings to even more sophisticated and technology-intensive domains like cybersecurity, data storage, business continuity, end-user computing, IT infrastructure monitoring, and network technologies.

The Fully Managed IT Services model of tech support has gained widespread acceptance over the past two decades and is growing. The global market for IT services is expected to grow from an estimated $342.9 Billion in 2020 to a whopping $410.2 Billion by 2027, translating to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6% [1].

Can I Trust Outsourcing My IT Tech Support to an MSP?

There’s always a bit of fear that comes into a business owner’s mind when we talk about moving mission-critical aspects of the business to third-party control. However, when it comes to IT tech support, it’s for the best. An MSP has the experience, expertise, and operational bandwidth to do what an internal IT employee – or even an entire internal IT team – cannot do.

The relationship between you (the client) and your MSP is determined by a goal-oriented contractual agreement that describes service-related Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

The SLA and KPIs established at the beginning of your relationship with your MSP provide you with contractual assurances. Master service agreements are signed by both parties to embark on the relationship.

IT Help Desk Support for Your Business

Perhaps the most popular service that MSPs offer within a Fully Managed IT Services agreement is IT Help Desk Support.

Pronix IT Help Desk outsourcing in Houston Texas is your first call when you have a tech question or something is going wrong with your computers, servers, or network. Most MSPs offer access to their IT Help Desk support team through phone, email, or a communications app installed on your devices.

Once the IT Help Desk is contacted by your or one of your employees, a “Help Desk Ticket” is created. This is an electronic record of the issue, work on the issue by the MSP, resolution to the issue, and any communications with you, the client, regarding the issue.

After the ticket has been created, the MSP will assign personnel to address your concerns or troubleshoot the issue you’ve identified. Once you’ve been provided with the information that you need or the IT issue has been fixed, the ticket is closed, and you are notified of the issue resolution.

The Pronix Outsourced IT Help Desk support team gives you the assurance that your employees won’t lose massive amounts of productivity time due to a lack of answers to tech questions or troubleshooting needs.

IT Tech Support – Help for the Big Picture IT Challenges of Your Business

Partially related to the above-mentioned IT Help Desk Support is IT Tech Support. This service includes the day-to-day updates, patching, management, and monitoring of your IT environment to keep it running and secure.

Within the Fully Managed IT Support model, IT Tech Support is a continuous effort. Your MSP works behind the scenes to make sure that your computers, servers, and even mobile devices are optimized and protected according to industry best practices.

The best part about IT Tech Support in this IT support model is that the cost of the tech work remains stable within that monthly payment, whether you need routine IT management through a given month or run into serious tech issues that must be addressed.

Business Telephone Services – VoIP

Telephone systems have come a long way in recent years. No longer does a business need expensive, on-site telephone equipment and extra lines from the local carrier. Today, business communications can be done over modern internet infrastructure using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology.

Business Telephone Services are now offered by MSPs in conjunction with other communication features such as conference calling, video calling, voicemail to email, and much more. This packaging of pro-business communications tools is often called “unified communications.”

The main advantages of partnering with an MSP to provide telephone services to your company are:

• Predictable per-user telephone rates
• Low to no long-distance charges
• Simple to add or remove lines
• Smartphone apps to put business line phone functionality on any phone
• Full pro-business feature sets

Keeping Your Business Data Safe with VPN Technology

VPN (Virtual Private Network) Technology is used to protect your data between your computer and your company’s internal or cloud server while you are working out of the office. This technology sends your data through a private, encrypted “tunnel” that helps keep prying eyes out of your business.

Companies like yours use VPN technology for work-from-home employees, traveling employees, contract employees, and executives that take work home from time to time. The VPN is just one of the layers of security that is put in place by your MSP to keep your data and workflow secure.

Planning for Every Eventuality – Disaster Recovery

Every company leader knows that there are some things beyond his/her control, no matter how well they have planned. An IT disaster is defined as not having access to your IT resources – your computing power, data, workflow, cloud resources, etc., for an extended period of time.

This “worst-case” IT scenario can easily be brought on by human error, criminal activity, fire, flood, power outage, and power surges. BCDR (Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery) strategies are implemented to help keep your business running, even if one of these negative circumstances impacts your operations.

The core of disaster recovery planning is data backup. Using automated, regular, verified data backups, your MSP will duplicate your data in an offsite data center. This offsite duplication gives you access to your data even if your on-site data is stolen, corrupted, or lost.

Within a disaster recovery strategy are also considerations around where to get new computers and servers if needed and where to relocate operations to if necessary.

What Else Can Be Included in a Fully Managed IT Agreement with an MSP?

Managed Service Providers are known for handling a complex, time-consuming, repetitive, and exhaustive list of information technology tasks including but not limited to:

• IT Infrastructure Support
• Data Security and Protection
• Data storage, backup, and replication
• Digital transformation consulting
• Application development, implementation, and management
• Cloud Services
• Quality Assurance and DevOps
• Data Engineering and Analytics

Do I Need Fully Managed IT Services?

Some of the operational symptoms which call for the need of an MSP include:

• “Lack of service and support slowed down our efforts to achieve goals last year.”
• “Outages and downtime were too high and kept us from making progress.”
• “Tweaks to business applications depleted our budget and didn’t improve performance.”
• “Data was lost due to inefficient IT protocols and management.”
• “We spend most of our time in identifying the right skill-set but are unable to tap the right market,”
• “Our regulatory compliance is diminishing, and we need to take care of it.”
• “Our customers’ experience and their engagement with our products need overhauling.”

Case Study

Process Integration (IT Solutions Automation and Standardization)

Project Name: Process Integration

Client: Major Auto Parts Manufacturing Client

Project Commencement Date: Feb 2018

Project Completion Date: May 2019

Contact Pronix IT Solutions Outsourcing for a no hasle consultation

Business Problem:

Improve business performance by implementing new business and data management processes supported by enabling technologies. Achieve business benefits to realize value through transformation, automation, and standardization. Improve the stability and effectiveness of IT systems.

Business Solution:

Improve the existing business processes that include OTC, RTR, PTP, STP, LTT. 
Migrating SAP R/3 to SAP S/4 HANA.
Cleanse the old data as much as they can before migration
Extracting, Transforming and Loading the existing data into S/4 HANA with a new set of business rules.
Use SAP BODS as a Data Migration tool.
Implement new company codes, plants as per the current business requirements.
Greenfield implementation of S/4 HANA.

Read More for the IT Solution

Choosing the Right Partner for Outsourced IT Support

Choosing a reliable managed IT outsourcing service partner in Houston Texas can be a challenging task. Some of the industry best practices followed while shortlisting and finalizing a strategic partner are:

• Shortlist at least 2 -3 MSPs with the same expertise – In your quest to finalize a managed service provider, you should always boil down to a list of at least 2-3 service providers having expertise in the same technology. This will give you the flexibility to negotiate terms and encourage competition in the RFP (Request for Proposal) stage, which in turn will benefit your business.

• Always float an RFP – A Request for Proposal is an effective tool that should be leveraged for selecting the best MSP. A well-defined RFP should cover all the aspects of the work you plan to outsource. The RFP should be comprehensive enough to cover all the aspects of your outsourcing needs.

• Seamless Communication – A respected Managed Service Provider is always available to talk during business hours and easy to reach. Though the MSP uses customer support tools to manage communications, the MSP must be responsive to requests.

• Goal Alignment – One of the crucial parameters while choosing an IT support partner is the alignment of the goals. The MSP should align its service delivery to the operational goals of the client. Businesses today are more conversant with IT than they were a few decades ago. The alignment of business, as well as strategic goals, is vital to the success of any engagement.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Your IT Tech Support

Hiring an outside team of IT tech support specialists in Houston Texas is beneficial for the following reasons:

• Availability of expertise – The vast experience and knowledge within an MSP team give them an edge over jack-of-all-trade tech support people. Finding an in-house expert in emerging and flourishing technologies like Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, Data Cloud, and Digital Transformation is nearly impossible in this global market. Lack of this expertise can lead to strategic setbacks if not sourced within the organization’s timeline.

• Improved cost efficiencies – Paying a monthly flat fee for IT support is far more cost-effective than dealing with big, unexpected break/fix bills when multiple things go wrong within a given month.

• Improved risk management – An MSP assumes, manages, and shoulders a lot of risk for its customers by having specific industry knowledge and contributing its proprietary methodologies to the customer environment. For an MSP, it’s all about reducing your vulnerability.

• Enhanced productivity – Businesses need mission-critical applications to be always available. Having an MSP’s services in place ensures maximum uptime for mission-critical applications, maintenance for all the components, and adherence to best practices for better governance and compliance.

Final Thoughts

Technology is becoming more complex all the time, but your business is dependent upon your IT resources. In order to have the IT expertise needed to be competitive and stay secure in an evolving marketplace, it’s important for you to have a team of IT specialists on your side.

An MSP, like Pronix Inc., provides you with the always-on IT support, security, management, and maintenance that helps keep you competitive, running, and protected.

Whether you are looking for IT tech support for your hospitiality industry or for a busy healthcare enterprise, Pronix is here to answer your questions and manage your IT help desk for you!

References

[1] IT Outsourcing - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics (researchandmarkets.com)