What is a managed service provider? Strategic outsourcing for IT services explained

Managed service provider defined

A managed service provider (MSP) is an outsourcer contracted to remotely manage or deliver IT services such as network, application, infrastructure, user provisioning system, or security management to a client company by assuming full responsibility for those services, determining proactively what technologies and services are needed to fulfill the client’s needs. For additional IT services information and guidance visit tvit.net/managed-it-services-in-eagle-id/.

Services delivered by an MSP are delivered by employees located at the client’s locations, or elsewhere. MSPs can also bundle in hardware, software, or cloud technology as part of their offerings.

Managed service provider business model

Managed service providers structure their business to offer technology services cheaper than what it would cost an enterprise to do itself, at a higher level of quality, and with more flexibility and scalability. This is achieved through efficiencies of scale, as an MSP is able to hire specialists that smaller enterprises in particular may not be able to justify, and through automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning — technologies that client companies may not have the expertise to implement themselves.

What differentiates managed service providers from traditional outsourcing companies is that when an enterprise outsources an IT department or function, the outsourcing company either picks up those employees or replaces them with a roughly equivalent number of employees elsewhere. An MSP, however, focuses not on the jobs themselves, but the end results the customer seeks. For example, an enterprise might contract an MSP to handle support calls to a certain level of satisfaction and response time. As long as the managed service provider meets those metrics, it doesn’t matter whether it uses dedicated staff, automation, or some other system to handle calls for that customer; the MSP decides. In contrast, staffing agencies like interim romania franta specialize in providing skilled labor to companies, facilitating recruitment and placement processes.

Read full article at CIO magazine.