Identifying the Value of Managed IT: Consulting Services

There are many business processes that require an experienced touch… experience that you may not personally have. In this case, you’d typically call in someone who does. Why should your technology be any different? In part two of our five-part series, we’re examining how a managed service provider can serve as a valued consultant for your business’ needs.

Consulting, Condensed

A consultant is someone who, as we’ve established, can be brought into a process to provide professional assistance with a task beyond the capabilities of the original resource. There are assorted reasons to bring in a consultant:

• Insufficient skills to safely or properly perform a task
• Lack of technical knowledge or ability
• Assurance of a successful outcome

In some way, shape, or form, hiring a consultant is a very effective way to avoid issues in your process - whatever that process may be.

The Experience Your Consultants Should Offer

There are a few benchmarks that any consultant you work with should have to live up to - starting with their familiarity of the task at hand. When hiring a consultant, you need to find one that has an intimate and up-to-date knowledge of the solutions they are recommending and is committed to providing you with the value that you have hired them to bring.

Technically, we ourselves qualify as consultants, as we help companies via our managed services to ensure they get the value they should be from their IT solutions.

That’s why our metrics of success are derived from how successful our clients can be through the use of our services and solutions. If we’ve done our job, our clients will have an easier, more productive time doing theirs. This makes for a powerful motivator to only deliver services that will work for you and maximize the value that your IT provides.

To accomplish this, there are a variety of services that we can offer to businesses. When a client’s technology is in need of an upgrade, working with us helps a business design a technology strategy that works now, and will continue to do so into the future.

Here are a few of the consulting services that a business can benefit from:

Virtual CIO Services

One of the biggest challenges we see our clients struggling with is (of course) the cost that the proper IT will incur, and it is this concern that brings them to us. Some want to upgrade their technology, but are concerned about the potential costs, and others want to match their business’ growth without overtaking their available budget. However, any reason they have comes from the same motivation:

They want to be sure their investment is worth the money they are putting into it.

With us working as your Virtual CIO, your IT strategy is in experienced hands. Not only will we evaluate the technology you’re currently using, we’ll figure out what is needed to optimize your IT strategy without stretching your budget too far. You don’t have to expend resources to research your options or spend your own time doing so - a team of experienced professionals has it handled on your behalf.

Vendor Management

Vendors are a necessity for businesses, but that doesn’t mean that dealing with them doesn’t take up more time than the business can afford - sometimes literally, as the time you spend dealing with vendors is time that could be spent producing revenue somehow. You also have to keep in mind that a vendor is just another name for a salesman, so their motivation is to sell you whatever they can - not what suits your business. 

By working with Walsh IT Group, however, you wouldn’t need to deal with your vendors firsthand. Instead, our team will handle it - you reach out to us, and we’ll make sure you get it.

Business Process Management

A huge benefit that almost any business technology brings is its efficiency. As someone inside the system, any internal IT resources you have might not be able to make the connections that an experienced managed service provider could. Once the MSP uses that perspective to more efficiently leverage your available resources, good things happen in your business.

Now consider the impact that someone with a stake in your continued success could have on your business’ tools and processes. Just think about how that could influence your potential productivity… and how your revenue could go up as a result.

That’s Not All We Can Do to Help

Working with a managed service provider gives companies an ace in the hole where their mission-critical technology comes into play. Whatever the issue, the MSP is able to fulfill the need.

To learn more about our consulting services, reach out to the team here at Walsh IT Group by calling (832) 295-1445. The next part of this series is coming soon, so make sure to check back in!