Managed IT Services Drive Business Continuity Success
Owning and maintaining a business is more than just outlining a business plan and making sure you’ve got the marketing right. In today’s increasingly connected and fast-paced world, stumbling due to a disaster or data loss can be devastating.
According to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 25% of businesses close after a disaster. Worse yet, roughly 90% of companies close after a year if they reopen too slowly (more than five days) after a disaster.
That’s why you need business continuity planning, and why managed IT services could be just the thing to springboard this concept into a reality. Read on to learn more.
What Is Business Continuity Planning?
Simply put, business continuity planning prepares the intricacies of your company for a disaster. It’s a proactive method that outlines the processes and measures in place to store and recover data and preserve critical business functions in the event of an extended outage.
At its core, business continuity planning involves determining the most common disaster risk factors that your business might encounter and developing reactive strategies to minimize the potential losses. Typically, a continuity planning strategy contains the following:
- Risk assessment: Determining the most likely threats to business operations, whether from natural disasters or hostile actions.
- Impact analysis: How the outlined risks directly affect the company’s bottom line and vital processes.
- Communication plans: How is inter-team communication conducted during an emergency? This is particularly vital for more modern hybrid businesses where teams or employees can be spread across continents.
- Recovery process: If data or processes are lost, are there any redundancies stored elsewhere, and how are they recovered?
If you’re still not certain about the vitality of business continuity planning, here’s another harrowing statistic: more than 100,000 small businesses shut down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. This global event has showcased just how important future-proofing can be.
How Managed IT Services Create the Backbone of Business Continuity Planning
Managed IT services, at their core, offload the technical challenges of creating and maintaining an IT infrastructure and technologies that the company uses. The third-party company that provides said services is called a Managed Service Provider (MSP) and is typically fully liable and capable of handling all technical aspects of a business. As a result, the business gets to focus on its internal processes and core operations.
But how does this arrangement help with business continuity planning? It turns out that the most critical components that an MSP provides can bolster your company’s plans. Here’s how.
Proactive Risk Management and Assessment
Since an MSP has plenty of experience with maintaining IT operations for both small and large businesses, the provider also can monitor your network and detect its shortcomings. Even if the company is upgrading a custom-built infrastructure, it can create a more accurate report of possible vulnerabilities.
Then, the provider can implement a proactive plan to patch these vulnerabilities to mitigate them or create an alternative solution to make core processes less prone to disruptions.
Data Storage and Recovery
One of the hallmarks of managed IT services is upgrading existing computer systems to leverage cloud solutions or distributed networks or systems. These features allow a business to store or back up its critical data and process information, allowing them to be retrieved in case the primary system is lost in a disruption or disaster.
This is one of the biggest potential selling points of having a managed IT provider since maintaining a close lid on your data can mean a difference between a successful or failing company. For example, the failure rate of hard drives is around 1%. While this might seem small, the concept of scale works against you. Maintaining a cloud service is one of the safest and easiest ways to have a respectable business continuity solution at hand.
Cybersecurity
Of course, even the most complex and modern cloud storage solutions are only as safe as their weakest links. Cybersecurity should be at the forefront of every online-first business strategy, as the number of ransomware victims rose by 128% in the past year, and the number of cyberattacks in 2023 has increased by 72% since the previous record from 2021.
These terrifying statistics suggest that the best time to have a cybersecurity strategy in place was yesterday, but today is the next best thing. Luckily, most competent MSPs will provide excellent cybersecurity measures to go along with the data storage and network management system. It will ensure that your company can repel and survive most hostile actions.
Disaster Recovery Planning
By their very nature of providing extensive tech-based services to a host of businesses, chances are MSPs have seen pretty much everything that can happen to a company when someone tries to shut them down. As a result, their planning and consulting teams have plenty of experience dealing with disaster planning.
This experience and expertise allow the provider to create a curated plan that will help your company take the first vital steps to develop its own continuity solution.
Continuous Support and Monitoring
One of the biggest pitfalls that small businesses make when implementing IT solutions is using a one-off service. While this does cut down costs a bit, the solution is rarely tailor-made to abide by the company’s standards or requirements, and, worse yet, it doesn’t account for future developments in cyber threats or data management.
By offloading your IT needs to a qualified MSP, the provider is often required to monitor your system in real-time and update it regularly to ensure it’s up to date with modern technologies.
Adherence to Standards
Did you know that there are over 120 industry regulations that concern business continuity planning and management? Keeping track of all those requirements is often a job in itself, and a small business typically has more important things to do.
An MSP allows your IT infrastructure to abide by the regulations for the industry sector that your company is in. Furthermore, it has the means to regularly update your system to ensure it stays compliant.
Other Benefits of Managed IT Services
Apart from targeted features that allow your company to create and maintain a business continuity plan, a managed IT service can benefit a small business in a few ways.
Saving Time and Money
If your company doesn’t have a dedicated “tech guy,” it’s highly likely that you as the owner or manager get to wear that particular hat. However, this can cause you to lose control of other vital processes or, even worse, create ineffective and non-scalable solutions that take more time and money to repair. A professional service provider can bypass these issues seamlessly.
Scalability
One of the biggest issues small businesses face is determining what parts of their business processes can be outsourced. Unlike core processes, IT solutions typically adjust poorly to sudden growth or reductions, sometimes requiring significant overhauls. By partnering with a qualified MSP from the get-go, you can get a customized IT infrastructure with an option to upscale when your team (and budget) allows it.
User Training and Support
Even with the most advanced systems, you will quickly fall behind if your team doesn’t know how to use it optimally. A managed IT service provider can assess your employees’ needs, and provide comprehensive training for both the IT solution used and general tech. The latter can be vital if your company is undergoing a digital transformation.
Get the Best Curated IT Solutions
If your company needs to safeguard its data and processes against anything nature or hackers throw its way, don’t hesitate to reach out to DTS. We provide modern, customized, and responsive services in IT and compliance, digital and data management tools, as well as other vital services such as printing and collaboration solutions.
For a detailed report on how DTS can help your Bloomington, Minneapolis, or St. Paul-based business, get in touch with DTS today.