To take full advantage of the benefits of an MSP, you need to maintain a strong relationship with them.

By outsourcing at least some of your IT operations to a Managed Service Provider (MSP), you could potentially save money and further your business growth.

However, to take full advantage of these benefits, you need to maintain a strong working relationship with your MSP. The following are 10 quick tips about working with your Managed Service Provider (MSP):

1. Share your business goals with them. They can help you most effectively only if they understand what direction you want your company to go in and anticipate how your IT needs might change along the way.
2. Keep communication lines open. Regularly touch base with them about your IT configuration, whether everything’s going smoothly, and whether anything could improve or needs to change.
3. Understand what they’re doing for you. You don’t need to know all of the technical details, but you should understand the general picture of what they’re doing for you and why it’s necessary, even if you don’t consider yourself a computer savvy person. If they’re good communicators, they can explain to you what’s going on.
4. Establish clear collaborative boundaries from the beginning. Understand the scope of their responsibilities from the start. And if you have an IT staff already, establish a relationship of collaboration and clear boundaries, to avoid a situation where your in-house employees think the MSP is pushing them out of the picture.
5. Hammer out a clear contract. Make sure you know how long they’ll work for you, how they’ll bill you, and what devices, programs and services they’ll take responsibility for.
6. Quantify results. How will you measure increased productivity, savings in costs, or other benefits you might expect from your MSP? What is your MSP’s response time to various problems?
7. Keep being a manager. Even when you outsource various services, you still need to stay on top of things and make informed decisions.
8. Look into security. When you outsource your IT needs, in whole or part, to another company, you want to ensure as much as possible that your security won’t get compromised. What powerful security practices does your MSP have in place? What’s their security record?
9. Ask away. You should feel comfortable asking them questions and bringing your concerns to them immediately.
10. Treat them with trust. This doesn’t mean blindly accepting everything they do or suggest; however, if you’ve taken the trouble to choose a reliable and effective MSP, you should also feel comfortable delegating things to them and not second-guessing everything they do. By following the other tips here, such as communicating regularly and quantifying various results, you can monitor their contribution to your company without potentially obstructing their work.

Don’t hesitate to contact us for more information about the managed services we offer. When collaborating with us, you will receive IT services responsive to your company’s needs and aimed at promoting its survival and success.