The Covid pandemic left many businesses with no choice but to go online. While some of the conditions that forced the move have eased, maintaining a digital presence often allows businesses to capture new customers who would otherwise remain out of reach. That gives you a vested interest in maintaining or even expanding the range of your digital services.

Unfortunately, maintaining a digital presence requires more than a little IT know-how. If you can’t hire that know-how directly, a managed service provider can fill the gap. If you’re wondering exactly what an MSP does, keep reading for a quick breakdown.

Security

One of the key IT services that an MSP can offer is cybersecurity support. That’s even more important courtesy of the continuing cybersecurity labor shortage. Even businesses that want and can afford cybersecurity professionals struggle to fill those roles.

Most MSPs will have cybersecurity pros in place that help you set up critical security measures like firewalls and network monitoring.

Data Backups

In the age of ransomware, data backups are more important than ever. They serve as a final defense, as you can wipe your infected systems and reload everything from the data backups. That’s assuming you have the data safely backed up off-site.

A good IT solutions company will offer data backup services and can help you automate that backup process. You can feel more secure that you’ll have your data if the worst happens.

Communication

As VoIP has become increasingly mainstream and reliable, many IT services companies now offer communication systems services. They can help you analyze your current system’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as design a new system. In many cases, you can get a system with more of the features you need or want.

A few common services include voicemail, automated attendants, and even integration of your business smartphones into the system.

IT Infrastructure

For small businesses that are just getting started, an MSP can offer small business IT services like system and network design. For example, they can help you put together all the right hardware for your business network.

That helps you avoid problems like different pieces of hardware not working well together. That also means you get support for things like configuring the hardware and software that drive your network.

That help often extends to IT support by email or phone if you do have problems.

You and a Managed Service Provider

A managed service provider can act as something of a remote IT department for your business. Once you get through the setup process, they help monitor your network and troubleshoot your IT infrastructure when problems occur.

They can also play a key role in disaster recovery efforts. If you backup your data in the cloud, it means that you can get up and running fairly quickly whether there’s a fire or flooding on-site or you get hit with ransomware.

Inception Network Strategies offer managed IT services for small businesses. For questions or more information, contact Inception Network Strategies today.