Bad IT Costs More Than Money – How to Assess IT Provider Costs Accurately

Choosing the right IT provider is one of the most critical business decisions you’ll make

Key Takeaways:

• You can't measure the true cost of your IT provider simply in terms of money
• When you look at the relationship holistically, you can evaluate their performance
• Business success depends on a quality, monitored, and maintained infrastructure
• A quality IT provider brings efficiency, productivity, and cost savings
• Here are vital factors to consider. You may need to make a partner change

Your business hired a managed IT services provider (MSP) partner expecting solid benefits, including reduced costs, expert help, on-demand support, and increased efficiency. The right IT services provider can do all that and more. The wrong partner can cost you money, increase downtime, and limited scalability.

Choosing the right IT services provider is essential in today’s ever-evolving digital world. There’s nothing less than exponential growth happening. The power and speed of computers have been doubling every 18 months to two years since the 1960s. Every innovation creates new possibilities. Your IT provider must keep up.

But technological expertise is not the only metric when assessing the effectiveness of your IT provider. Great technology doesn't do much for you (and can even harm your business) if it isn't scalable, flexible, and secure. You want a provider that offers a range of services, great support, and a stellar industry reputation. 

In this article, we’ll explore the provider world, IT provider costs, how to evaluate your current provider and the value of investing in quality IT support. In short, we’ll answer, “Is my IT provider worth what I’m paying?” 

Critical factors to consider when choosing an IT provider

Once you’ve decided to hire an MSP, it’s time to interview potential partners. This is one of the most important decisions you can make for your business, and it is essential to take a holistic view. You want them to be up on the latest technology, but the most crucial consideration is whether they can help you meet your business goals. 

Or perhaps you already have an IT provider. The same considerations you used when you hired them can be used to evaluate their performance today. The critical things to evaluate include:

• Reputation and experience
  Check how long they’ve been in business, look for testimonials or case studies of their work, and check the Better Business Bureau for complaints. Has the provider won any awards? Do they have special certifications? Can they provide you with customer references? Endsight received high acclaim with multiple notable awards, learn more.
• Range of services
  It all starts with a business technology strategy that aligns with yours. Then you want to ensure your provider offers what’s needed to support that strategy, including systems management like anti-virus, disaster recovery, network maintenance and support, IT security services, systems administration, and proactive monitoring.
• Customer service and IT support
  How long does it take for your current provider to respond? When systems are down, work doesn’t get done, money is lost, and employees are frustrated. Your provider should respond to support requests in five minutes or less. They should also work to ferret out the root cause of the problem, so it doesn’t happen again.
• Cybersecurity savvy
  43% of cyber-attacks are against small businesses, most are ransomware demands, and those attacks increased 424% in 2022. The best providers have received awards for their cybersecurity management and offer state-of-the-art products and additional discretionary cybersecurity enhancements. Endsight won Sophos MSP Partner of the year, learn more.
• Scalability and flexibility
  Are you set up for future growth from the start? Changing software or systems because you’ve outgrown them is not only painful – it is expensive. Choose a provider who invests in your success and recommends products and services that will take you far into the future, as far as you want to go.
• Cost
  No matter what you're paying, you're paying too much if you are not getting what you need.

It may be time to switch if you can't confidently say that your current provider meets your needs in all the above areas. But let's dig a little deeper.

Evaluating your IT provider quality 

No matter who your provider is, it’s essential to conduct regular evaluations to ensure things are on track and goals are being met. This requires monitoring their performance in all the above areas and beyond:

• What is their response time? 
• How much downtime do you have?
• Is your provider knowledgeable in required areas, including cybersecurity?
• What is their project success rate? What is their overall success rate in problem-solving for the long haul (band-aid approaches don’t count)?

Remember that this is a two-way street, a partnership, and the same dynamics are in any other relationship – shared responsibility for results. Your parts in this process include:

• Clearly communicating your needs and expectations
• Implementing regular performance reviews
• Reinforcing your business goals to ensure alignment
• Soliciting feedback from employees
• Properly negotiating service level agreements for IT provider costs

Working with an IT provider partner is an investment in your business today and in the future and can make the difference between simply rolling along or becoming a market leader.

Quality IT Support Can Save You. Poor IT Support Costs You

It is not just about money. IT provider costs vary, and you can’t tell a good MSP from a bad one by how much they charge. Paying more for the best is worth it. But the actual costs come from working with a poor provider.

By making the right choice, you’ll never wonder “Is my IT provider worth what I’m paying?”

Partnering with the right MSP is one of the most critical business decisions you’ll make. Technology is complicated and getting more complex by the day. Endsight is an outsourced technology support solution partner that thinks strategically about business technology and helps our clients meet their goals. 

Our process and range of services create optimal IT solutions and technical support for businesses, large and small. Endsight's core values bring peace of mind, an honest partnership, commitment to your long-term success, and unparalleled, dependable service.

Let’s get started today – request your free IT assessment.