Business continuity is your company’s ability to maintain its core operations and critical business processes during a natural disaster, a cyber attack, or any other unplanned incident. Without a business continuity strategy, you could face costly downtime, reputation damage, and unrecoverable data loss. Here’s how partnering with a managed services provider (MSP) can help you avoid these issues by bringing together your core cybersecurity and continuity needs.
The role of managed services
Managed services are the processes and operations that you outsource to an external IT service provider. You can outsource everything from network monitoring to storage solutions. Common managed services include:
- Disaster planning and data recovery
- Compliance and data protection
- Networking surveillance
- General IT support
- Cybersecurity
Managed IT services allow you to spend more time growing your business and building your brand without worrying about your IT needs.
Managed services offer numerous benefits to your company, but here are the five main ways they help align your cybersecurity and critical operations.
Intrusion and vulnerability monitoring
According to the 2019 Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report, 47 percent of small businesses surveyed reported at least one cyber attack last year, and 63 percent of medium-sized businesses were attacked. An MSP can help reduce your risk of a cyber attack by constantly monitoring your network and detecting any outsider threats.
Data protection and compliance
Data protection is a major issue for every company, whether it’s keeping data secure in the cloud or complying with data privacy laws. MSPs bring together your regulatory and data protection needs by offering full compliance advice and secure data storage. By outsourcing your data protection needs as a managed IT service provider, you can focus on running your business without stressing over data protection.
Business uptime
Downtime causes numerous problems, including lost productivity, reputation damage, and lost profits. In fact, SMBs lose up to $10,000 an hour in costs associated with even moderate downtime. However, managed services improve your uptime because providers have the knowledge to get you up and running again as quickly as possible. They also have the expertise to reduce downtime in the first place by keeping your software and hardware up to date.
24/7 support
Your cybersecurity and continuity needs never sleep, whether you’re working on a remote device or in the office. MSPs can remotely monitor your network and infrastructure 24/7, and they can offer you troubleshooting advice whenever you need it. Having 24/7 support is another crucial way to improve your uptime and minimize lost profits.
Disaster planning
Whether it’s a major cyber incident or a natural disaster, it’s impossible to prepare for every eventuality. An MSP, however, can help you devise a disaster management strategy so you can respond to major incidents and get your core processes online with minimal delay. With managed services, you can improve your chances of data recovery and minimize the costs associated with disasters and data breaches.
Secure your business today
Managed IT services play a vital role in modern business. With an MSP, you can improve your uptime, increase your cybersecurity, and reduce your capital IT expenses – all without compromising on efficiency. For more information on business continuity and the role of managed services, contact us today.
