Selecting a partner for critical IT management is an extremely important decision. Companies that provide these services are called Managed Service Providers (MSP), and there are a lot of option in the San Diego Market. As of 2019, there are over 100 companies that offer MSP services in San Diego alone.
With so many companies competing for your business, it will be best to partner with the MSP that specifically addressed your needs. The following list will break down questions that may be applicable in differentiating one MSP from another.
Specific Skillsets: Every provider has their own experiences and that caters to their expertise. For example, are all of their clients small businesses with basic desktop needs or do they manage enterprise infrastructure with critical uptime/security? This example is a wide range, but it demonstrates the how diverse they may be.
Service Level Agreements: It is important to have specific SLAs defined to build an agreement around. This sets the correct expectation on response times and uptime.
Longevity: There are many MSPs in the market and many have surfaced in the last couple years. It is important to know if they are financially stable or if they bank their entire existence on a single anchor client.
Availability: Many MSPs will cater to their clients between their local business hours (8:00-5:00). This is great for most small business, but not for companies that require around the clock monitoring and response.
Leadership: It’s smart to understand how the leadership views the business. Keep in mind, being an MSP means dedicating your client’s success to your performance. If the company’s leadership thinks this is paramount, you should be in good hands. If it is a sales/numbers game, beware.
Tools in Use: MSPs will leverage various software solutions to power their service. Often, this is an indicator of the level of service that they will provide. There are a lot of software solutions, some are catered to small business, others enterprise. More sophisticated tools require more skills and experience.
All Inclusive: Managed Services can be delivered in many ways (break/fix, managed + project, and all inclusive). All Inclusive services deliver a great value, especially if you wish to avoid any nasty surprises. It is important to understand what your agreement will cover and what the expectations will be for anything that is not covered.
Participation in the Industry: The IT community is diverse and friendly. Companies that embrace the community will have access to more partners, advisors and an overall network of professionals. Groups that hide within their own confines will suffer from exposure and communication.
Reference Accounts: It is important to understand what types of companies your MSP has relationships with. This is about aligning your needs with the appropriate experience.
Cyber Security: Managing advanced security is significantly more complex today than it was ten years ago. Software tools, integration, and reporting must all conform with specific guidelines that will either be dictated by the client’s own policy or regulatory compliance. MSPs that work primarily with small business will have limited exposure to the complexities of a fully secure operation.
Cloud: The term “Cloud” encompasses a lot, whether we’re talking about public infrastructure or a stack of servers. Some MSPs have data center investments, others live and die with public Cloud only. When dealing with IT, Cloud has become unavoidable. It is important to understand where your provider’s beliefs are and how that can be valuable to you.
Locality: Do you prefer to work with a local group or a nationwide service provider. There are benefits and drawbacks to both, it will depend on you what is best for your business.
Business Practice: The term MSP covers a lot of ground and there are many types of companies providing MSP services. There are pure MSPs that 100% cater to managing IT. Then, there are also companies that have spun off MSP services from other core business practices (Phone, Copy, Data Center, Software etc). Keep in mind that some do what’s core to them best.
With all of these considerations taken into account, it is important to understand that it all comes down to one thing – Trust. Providing IT as a 3rd party can be tricky and expectations, responsibility and culture are paramount for success. This is the true differentiator in selecting a partner.
Mindcentric is a San Diego based Managed Service provider that has satellite offices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Maine. We have worked with clients with critical infrastructure since 1999, addressing cyber security, Cloud/Data Center ops, system monitoring/management and compliance reporting. Today we have over 200 unique clients in many different verticals spanning Government, Finance, and Software/SaaS.