Find out the criteria of the best MSP for your business: a must-read guide
Managed service providers offer a range of capabilities to create solutions for organizations. They provide services and assistance to IT organizations that allow them to focus on core business operations and activities. However, the potential benefits of managed services can be achieved by opting for the right MSP. Consider the following criteria when evaluating the MSPs.
Deep Expertise And Experience
- The baseline criteria for selecting the MSP are skills and experience. A managed service provider should demonstrate certified skills beyond basic maintenance and management. Question and evaluate skills related to virtualization, cross-platform integration, managing change, mobility, security, cloud technologies, and databases.
In addition, inquire about the methods through which knowledge is shared, and best practices are communicated. The MSP you select must have deep expertise across all delivery models, including traditional IT and strategic outsourcing, as well as managed services and cloud platforms. In this way, the MSP can assist you in achieving a multi-sourcing strategy tailored to meet your organization’s needs.
Manifest A Dedicated And Holistic Technology-Based Approach
- Ensure that the MSP you select has a proactive approach focused on continuous improvement and problem prevention. The potential managed service provider must go beyond simple device management and monitoring. According to IDC, an average of about 20% cost saving was indicated when outsourced service was automated.
In addition, employing sophisticated technologies such as advanced analytics can result in incident prevention by monitoring failure patterns. Therefore, opt for technology providers that provide automated incident remediation, alert mechanisms, workload prioritization, and more.
Aligns With The Industry’s Best Practices
- Another essential criterion for selecting the ideal MSP is alignment with the industry’s best practices. Optimized IT management is the key to achieving highly available and reliable IT infrastructure. The continuous demand for service burdens IT operations.
Therefore, the chosen MSP should have the ability to run and employ the industry’s best practices for managing your IT resources. The best practices include managing events, change, configuration, capacity, incident, and performance.
Service Consistency And Visibility
- A consistent service delivery demands a transparent, scripted process to employ a practical and repeatable methodology. The MSP should be willing to share examples of process documentation. In addition, the service provider should explain how processes are carried out and replicated across multiple delivery locations.
Moreover, the management system of the MSP should allow staff from any location to access problems and resolution information. How the MSP gives you visibility into the performance of your infrastructure is essential.
Opt for a secure web-based portal that integrates related services into a single dashboard and allows:
- Access to real-time service visibility
- Offers online tools for managing services
- Provides flexible reporting capabilities
Multivendor And Multi-Cloud Support
- Modern IT infrastructures are heterogenous, hybrid environments consisting of traditional IT and software, hardware, and network products. Choose a service provider with proven experience working with multi-cloud and multivendor environments.
In addition, the MSP should have connections with leading vendors. This helps ensure availability and visibility into emerging technologies. Finally, a vendor-neutral service provider must be a broker to help you plan, purchase, manage, and work across multiple cloud models.
If you are still determining which type of managed services suit your business needs the best, consult our experts. Henson Group is an award-winning Microsoft Certified Azure Expert Managed Service Provider and offers consulting, migrations, and optimization services for Microsoft Azure. We have developed specialized skill sets for managing cloud services for businesses. For more information about our managed cloud services, visit hensongroup.com today. Get in touch today to know about us and ask us anything!