Managed service providers
In a world where businesses rely heavily on Information technology (IT) to function, Managed Service Providers or MSPs are quickly becoming essential. MSPs are basically companies that are responsible for managing and maintaining their client’s IT infrastructure. They do it remotely using the internet and provide a varied range of services as per the client’s budget and requirements. Software installation, system repairs, network security, backing up files, hardware and software upgrade are some of the tasks taken care of by a MSP. They ensure that the company has access to a smooth and glitch-free network that is needed for them to function and grow. They detect any abnormalities in their client’s systems and act promptly to resolve the issues before they turn into system failures. In-adept IT management can hamper a company’s productivity drastically and can even put their security at risk. Therefore, investing in a good MSP (and not just any break and fix company) is the need of the hour for all businesses, especially the small and medium scale enterprises if they want to gain a foothold in today’s highly competitive market.
Just like any other company, Managed Service Providers have also been employing the offshore staffing model to reap the offered benefits. By setting up an offshore team, MSP are allowed more flexibility. Their in-house and remote team work in tandem to achieve better results and produce more profits. Offshore staffing gives them the competitive edge over their rivals by improving profitability. Let’s take a look at how such a model provides them with benefits.
When MSPs set up an offshore staff it helps them in cutting costs by a huge margin. To run an MSP, a company requires individuals with high technical skills that are familiar with all kinds of software and hardware systems and the knowledge needed to run them. Such personnel don’t come cheap. While there is no substitute for employees absolutely needed on location by the company, a MSP uses offshore staffing for the jobs that can be performed remotely. By offshoring such jobs, MSPs save on costs as the labor in such countries is comparatively cheaper. Furthermore, even the IT infrastructure needed by their offshore team to function comes at a lesser price. This combined with the negligible overhead expenditure further increases their profits. Software such as Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) are often used by remote employees to help the clients. Some services that are offshored by MSPs include network security (employing NOC engineers), implementation of networks and their maintenance, system file backup, troubleshooting support, data analytics, and more.
A team needed to run a MSP company requires a very specific skillset for each job. Such knowledge is not always easily accessible everywhere. Managed Service Providers are able to make up for the dearth of talent locally by hiring offshore staff. With offshoring they acquire top IT experts for their company with good experience. Countries such as India boasts of an excellent IT sector with well trained and verified individuals. Offshore staffing helps them to access a global pool of talent adept at computer networking and IT who are able to perform jobs efficiently as expected of them. They have intrinsic knowledge of computers and are able to handle system maintenance routinely. Such highly skilled professionals are an asset for the MSPs. These employees also keep up with all the latest trends and technologies to provide innovative and effective solutions., as well as tackle any emergency.
Additionally, these employees take care of all the back-office work thereby taking off work load from the head office team. When the in-house team has to no longer worry about critical system and security breaches, they get more time to focus on core operations of the company. The offshore staff manages all their client’s networks for them simultaneously and the MSP’s team on location are able to concentrate on the company’s expansion and their clients. An effective understanding between the onshore and offshore team is created to increase profitability.
It is also of importance that the two teams operate at different hours. The time zone difference between countries allows the MSPs to monitor their client’s system 24 hours a day. This increases their reliability to the clients whose systems as a result work smoothly at all times. Since even the offshore team consists of well-informed people, they are more than capable of providing customer support or troubleshooting problems when the in house team is unavailable. This in fact helps their employees to avoid working for long hours and maintain their own life outside of work.
We discussed earlier how hiring IT employees is an expensive affair. But MSPs need to have the best in the field to assure optimal performance to their clients. At the same time, having a large team at all times is detrimental to a company’s capital and having too few may hinder productivity as well as quality. Offshore staffing provides the perfect solution to the MSPs by offering scalability. They can scale up and down as per the requirement of their company at any time, once again making valuable savings as a result.
In essence, offshore staffing is able to benefit managed service providers in a number of ways, all ultimately in the long run helping them increase their profitability. It aids in their growth and expansion, which is the goal of any company.