Over the past 20 years, technology has become of dominant factor in our lives. In the small business world, we’ve seen our computer go from being a “luxury item” to “important” to “business critical” in the matter of just the past few years. In today’s day and age, many small business owners find themselves in a deep trouble if their computer systems and networks don’t work properly. They might even find that they are out of business. But IT can be very expensive! How can a small business afford the expense associated with information technology? At Artis IT, we believe the answer is in “Managed IT Services”.

What are Managed IT Services?

Managed IT Services are services provided by a Managed Services Provider (MSP). Artis IT is a Managed Services Provider. A MSP receives income from services rendered to its customers, typically on a monthly basis. Common services provided by MSPs are services like remote monitoring of critical systems, remote computer and network management, security updates and monitoring, online backups and technical support. As an MSP, we offer our customers all of these services as well as a variety of others.

Why Should I Consider Managed IT Services?

Depending on your own personal decision making process, there are many ways to evaluate solutions and decide on an answer. If you like to weigh the “pros and cons” of a situation, here are some thoughts about why or why not to use Managed IT Services.

Pros

Value. Value is probably the single biggest factor to consider when evaluating whether to use Managed IT Services. When using Managed IT Services properly, the customer can see significant savings and impact to their bottom line.

As of September 11, 2007, according to Salary.com, a Network Engineer V in Jacksonville, Florida could command between $84,483.00 and $103,167.00 in annual salary. Assuming there is also a financial burden of employee overhead, this could reasonably be inflated by 20-30% based on taxes, benefits and other miscellaneous costs. This inflation would increase the range of total cost burden to the company to between $109,827.90 and $134,117.10 based on a 30% overhead factor.

The Business Lite support package from Artis IT costs $32,500 annually which represents a 76% savings.

Breadth. When hiring a Network Engineer V in Jacksonville, Florida, you have hired one person who can work no more than 24 hours in a day. Additionally, that single person has their strengths and weaknesses, their experiences and limitations. When working with a MSP, you are associating yourself with an organization of individuals and their collective experiences, strengths and weakness. Additionally, most MSPs like Artis IT offer value added services like tools, protocols and procedures of how to manage your IT infrastructure that many individuals don’t possess in their arsenal.

Cons

Lack of in-house expertise. When you outsource your information technology to a third-party, you lose the control of owning the subject matter expertise within your organization. If you are an IT company, this may not be the right thing to do. If you are a mortgage company, a CPA, building contractor or any host of other industry participants that don’t specialize in information technology that might not be such an issue. You may be able to look at outsourcing you IT much like you would look at outsourcing your P&L or Balance Sheet management to your accountant. The point is you might look at lack of in-house control or expertise as a “con” when considering using an IT MSP.

Who is Artis IT?

Artis IT is a full-service information technology solutions provider located in Jacksonville, Florida. There are many companies that offer the same kinds of products and services as Artis IT, however, we pride ourselves not on “what we do”, but rather “how we do it”. Our goal at Artis IT is to become your “trusted advisor” and we are willing to earn the partnership with you and your company. If you are interested in speaking with us about your current IT needs or frustrations, we’d love it if you’d invite us in to speak with you about it.

Technically Speaking, We Know IT!