Regardless of your industry, your reliance on information technology is growing year after year, and you can’t afford to employ a team of trained IT staff on a full-time basis. The solution is obvious: you outsource to a managed service provider (MSP) so that you can access top talent and innovative technologies at affordable prices.
But do you know which MSP is right for you?
It may seem that all MSPs do more or less the same — remotely manage a customer’s IT infrastructure. However, there are many important differences in how local MSPs and larger MSPs approach this task, and understanding them is the key to making the best choice possible.
As a small, local MSP, based in Minneapolis, we at TechGen are up against large companies with out-of-state centralized helpdesks and hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of employees. But even though we’re outnumbered, we’re certainly not outgunned because there’s a lot that only a local MSP can offer.
Why Working With a Local MSP Can Benefit Your Business:
Understanding Your Business
When an organization partners with a large MSP, it joins the ranks of countless other faceless customers from all parts of the country. It then receives one-size-fits-all customer service that may or may not meet all of its needs. When it doesn’t, the large MSP is typically less than willing to understand how it could better serve the organization and customize its services accordingly.
A local MSP offers personalized IT services and support
In contrast, a local MSP is all about offering personalized solutions to organizations that operate in an area the provider is deeply familiar with. As such, each solution can be tailored specifically to help the organization meet its short-term and long-term business goals and adjusted on an ongoing basis as these goals are met.
Because the value of personalized solutions steadily increases over time, it’s in the best interest of local MSPs to establish and maintain long-term relationships with its customers, instead of accepting the high turnover that’s characteristic for large providers.
Hands-On Assistance
Even though many national MSPs promise to take complete care of their customers’ IT needs, they often offer not much more than glorified remote support. Unless you’re located right next to a national provider’s regional branch, the support you’ll receive will likely happen over the phone or video call. That might be acceptable for certain types of IT issues, but there are times where hands-on assistance is indispensable.
If your organization is located in Minneapolis and you partner with a local MSP, you can rest assured, knowing that someone will always be ready to provide on-site support when you need it.
Over time, you’ll develop close personal relationships with your local provider. Why? Because you’ll be talking with the same few people whenever you need help with something. In a time of crisis, just seeing a familiar face can be reassuring and go a long way when it comes to improving team morale.
Fast and Always Available
Downtime is expensive. The last thing you want to experience when a critical piece of your IT infrastructure stops working is a long queue of customers (just like you) are trying to reach a remote provider over the phone.
Because we at TechGen have less than two dozen employees, we’re fast, reliable and nimble. This makes us ready to solve problems without requiring our customers to talk to three different people and get through miles of red tape just to get things going in the right direction.
The fast responsiveness of local MSPs can translate into massive cost savings since every minute of downtime can cost a small business as much as $427. To put these numbers into perspective, that’s roughly one median US household income saved for every two hours of downtime.
Interested in Working With a Local MSP?
If you’re thinking about outsourcing to a local MSP, consider the above-described advantage of going local. At TechGen, we proudly provide IT support and IT service for Minneapolis, St. Paul and the Twin Cities area. Despite being relatively small in size, we’re experts in what we do and proud holders of the ISO/IEC 27001 certificate for information security management. Contact us today at 612-279-2400 and let us become your new local Minneapolis provider.