Why Low-Cost Managed Services Providers Can Hurt Your Business

Managed Services Provider’s pricing can vary widely, and choosing a provider on the lower end of the pricing spectrum may be tempting. However, choosing a cheap provider may negatively affect your business in the long run. If you are considering partnering with an MSP, there are many things to consider.

How to choose an MSP

Choosing an MSP can be difficult, so it’s essential to research before making a final decision.

Find an MSP that is a good fit for your business: You need to find an MSP that can provide the services you need, has the proper certifications, and has the scale and capacity to meet your current and future demands. If they do not have these things, hiring them due to a lower cost vs. another company with more mature service delivery, more significant experience in managed services, and greater capacity to address your needs today and scale to meet your future needs may be very detrimental.
Find out if their reputation is good: You should investigate their reputation and ensure they have positive reviews from many other clients before hiring them!
Assess their operational maturity: Many managed services providers lack operational maturity and rely on talented individuals instead. A lack of comprehensive, vetted processes, standards, and mature systems will eventually bleed into service delivery issues that negatively impact your staff’s productivity, your reputation, and, ultimately, your bottom line.

A low-cost managed service provider may be a bad choice for your company

A low-cost managed service provider may not have the resources to provide the quality of service you need. In the modern digital age, your company has much riding on its IT department. If you’re outsourcing it to an MSP that doesn’t have enough staffing or expertise, problems will inevitably arise. This could result in lost productivity, unhappy employees and even loss of business if customers decide not to do business with you because their systems are down too often or don’t work properly when they do come back online after being fixed by an MSP employee who isn’t familiar with their specific needs (or doesn’t care).
Low cost does not necessarily mean great value when it comes to IT services–especially those provided by third-party vendors such as managed service providers! There are many instances where choosing the lowest-priced option can cost more due primarily to two factors: 1) poor quality and 2) lack of accountability/responsiveness.

Why low-cost managed service providers can hurt your business

You may think you can save money using a low-cost managed service provider, but this can hurt your business and cost more. Here are some reasons why:

Providing high-quality managed services in a sustainable business model requires the MSP staff to be highly qualified IT professionals with adequate available capacity to address client needs rapidly. These IT professionals are costly resources, and so a low-cost managed services provider is either constrained in terms of 1) inadequate capacity that will lead to poor response and resolution times, 2) employing under-qualified resources that will compromise effective resolution to issues, delivering poor project execution, and increase security & business continuity risks or 3) is relying on ultra-low-cost oversees resources that may risk your security and provide a poor support experience.
Low-cost providers may not have the skills to manage your network. A skilled staff is essential for maintaining smooth operations and troubleshooting issues. Still, many of these companies don’t employ engineers with years of experience and in-depth subject matter expertise. Instead, they rely on underqualified staff or offshore support centers with inexperienced workers who lack the necessary knowledge about how networks work or how to fix them when something goes wrong. This means that if something goes wrong with your network and needs fixing, it could take longer than usual for them to respond–and in some cases, they might not respond at all!
Low-cost providers will likely be less responsive than more expensive options because they’re not equipped with enough resources (such as highly trained engineers) or tools (like monitoring systems) needed to effectively manage complex IT environments like yours.

Choosing an IT partner is not just about price but overall quality.

When selecting an IT partner, it’s not just about price. It’s also about the quality of service and support you receive. Here are some things to consider when choosing an MSP:

Look for an MSP that has a good track record in your industry. How will they know your challenges if they haven’t worked with companies like yours?
Choose an MSP with a strong reputation in your market area–and make sure all references check out! You don’t want to get stuck with someone who doesn’t deliver on promises made during their sales pitch and lacks glowing reviews from other clients (or worse yet–no references at all). If possible, talk directly with some of these customers so that they can tell you why they were happy working with this company instead of another one, which was cheaper but less effective overall.
Ask in-depth questions to explore the maturity of the MSP’s operations. Do they have confident, concrete answers to questions about operating procedures, resource capacity planning, standards, quality controls, and service delivery key performance indicators? As you ask questions along these lines, assess their ability to answer quickly, confidently, and in detail. Hesitation, ambiguity, or a lack of confidence likely indicates a lack of operational maturity and, therefore, a lack of ability to consistently fulfill the salespeople’s promises.

How to find a great managed services provider?

Choose a local company with an excellent reputation.
Look for a managed services provider with a strong customer service track record and who can provide references from other customers in your industry to prove it.
Ensure that your potential MSP has the right skill set to meet your needs–if they don’t, they may not be able to deliver results for you (and this can lead to problems down the road).
Look for an MSP that knows what they’re doing and can demonstrate it via thorough explanations of their processes, procedures, systems, and management controls.

We hope this article has helped you understand why low-cost managed service providers can hurt your business. Finding the right IT partner can be challenging but don’t settle for anything less than quality. If you want to ensure your company gets everything it needs from its MSP and not just low prices, contact us today!

Get Started With Framework IT Today

If you’re ready to commit to a managed IT solution, choose Framework IT today.

We combine consistent support, technological strategies and proactive security for a comprehensive managed solution. Our dedicated team works closely with you to build an IT solution for your exact needs and security concerns. We can help your financial institution stay secure and efficient.

We have a 97% satisfaction rate among current partners and look forward to assisting new organizations with their security needs. To get started with Framework IT, contact us today.