Choosing a managed IT services provider in London can be a daunting task. Such an investment requires careful consideration; therefore, it pays to conduct due diligence on your prospective IT partners.
We live in very exciting times. As a business owner, you are in an unprecedented era where technology can enable you to truly tighten up your bottom line and vastly increase your profit margins.
Mundane tasks, once laborious in nature and time-consuming for staff, are being ‘cost-effectively’ streamlined in ways that you and your ‘tech-savvy’ competitors are learning, implementing, and waking up to with wide-eyed excitement to the limitless opportunities opening up for them.
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Choosing the Right IT Support Service Provider
Innovative automation techniques mean those labor-intensive, cash-sapping processes no longer require the time nor financial investment that they used to – leading to tremendous improvements in staff productivity with the by-product equating to ‘money in the bank’. Truly exciting times!
For such opportunities to actualize into reality, they are contingent on your Managed IT Service Provider understanding that your IT infrastructure will be unique by design and technical requirements should be aligned with your business goals.
From assessing your existing IT architecture with consideration of how you wish the business to be developed; your MSP should clearly demonstrate an ability to forecast potential future data growth based on your historical data.
This becomes the foundation for them to collaborate with you in forging an agile, adaptable strategy with the capacity to house the predicted rate of expansion. which inevitably begs the question:
Which IT Support Company in London truly has your business interests at heart?
A fair question to ask. In our humble opinion, the company should understand how you use technology on a day-to-day basis and what your core objectives are.
For a managed IT services provider to possess the capacity to truly protect your business’s best interests, their key components will be:
1. Service Desk Services
A service desk team manages three critical areas under the umbrella of Infrastructure Management, Service Desk, End User Computing, and digital media services.
The Service Desk is the first point of contact for all IT service requests and for the reporting of IT-related incidents.
A service desk team should consist of highly skilled Technicians – providing on-site and off-site assistance for client end-user environments.
For example, the Fifosys IT service desk team support a multitude of end-user IT tools and services for our clients in London and across the UK – including PC’s, laptops, printers, digital signage equipment, tablets, mobile phones as well as audio-visual services for your conference calls.
Your chosen Service Desk supplier should be a multi-skilled team, providing day-to-day support for your entire IT infrastructure as well as developing new and innovative services for your end-user environment.
The main activities are:
- Service Requests
- Work Requests
- Incidents/Requests
- Research and Development
- Information Security
- Scripting and Coding
- Knowledge Management
- Supplier Management
- Service Management
- Consultancy
- Procurement
- Software management
- Consultancy
- Procurement
- Software management
- Asset management
- Licensing
- Remote Access
- Printing Services
- Meeting Room Support
- Hardware management
2. IT Infrastructure Management
An IT Infrastructure Management Team has the following responsibilities to manage Voice, LAN, WAN, Firewall, Server, Backup, IT Disaster Recovery, IT Business Continuity, and Cybersecurity functions, all of which are the bedrock of IT services.
The team should consist of competent experts with the qualified capability to provide 1st, 2nd and 3rd level engineering for all services – as well as the ‘know-how’ to drive consultancy for new initiatives, projects, and forecasting financial scalability.
The main activities of managing an IT Infrastructure are:
- Capacity Management of computing storage
- Supplier Management
- Consultancy
- WAN
- Backup/Restore
- Email, Exchange
- Project Delivery
- Data Network Support, Maintain, Upgrade
- Rights & Permissions
- Service OS Patch Updates
- Network Monitoring, Management & Reports
- Proactive Monitoring & Remediation
- Firewall Configuration
- Wi-Fi Configuration
- Storage
- Compute
How your MSP can help you in undertaking a High-Level IT relocation:
Experienced engineers understand the risky nature of IT relocation. Therefore, they are aware of the structural considerations necessary during the thought/planning process of relocating your environment. They must demonstrate hardened leadership capabilities to successfully guide, manage, and support the high-risk procedure that is relocating a client’s entire IT infrastructure. Key things to consider:
- Length of the lease on the premises
- Moving from a serviced office to a commercial building or vice versa
- Structure Cabling
- The team involved and the coordination required
- An opportunity for a change of infrastructure architecture
- Shared or dedicated comms room
For example, Fifosys cover the whole IT project lifecycle from initial implementation to service transition and project completion. Our professional, proactive, collaborative, and inclusive Infrastructure management style promotes effective working relationships with our clients and their end-users.
Your chosen team should be skilled in both the traditional and agile styles of project delivery, adopting various methods and frameworks: PRINCE2, MSP, DSDM, and SCRUM. All our projects are run in accordance with ITIL best practices, ISO 27001 data security standards, and Cyber Essentials Plus guidelines. Regardless of the scale or complexity of a project, we employ and refine our systems and processes to provide control, governance, and transparency throughout the life of a project.
The main activities are:
- Assessments/feasibility studies/AS-IS Reviews/Health checks/Case Reviews
- Project Management (full end-to-end delivery)
- Consultancy on IT solution delivery, project/program management
- Management of Complex IT project delivery, large-scale integration, and transition to business as usual
- Project, Programme, and Portfolio shaping
- Risk and Issue Management
- Cost, Benefit, and resource management
- Third-Party/External Supplier engagement and control
- Project Support Office
To conclude, your chosen supplier should provide consultancy services in IT Relocation & Project Delivery, change management, and IT Infrastructure Services Solutions. Also, ensure that you’re your IT team is given assurance on all aspects of technical project delivery and control. Projects should be managed in line with ITIL standards and technical solutions need to be consistent with your strategic business objectives.
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