Break/Fix IT support or managed IT services: Which is better?

If your business in Southern California is not IT-centric but relies on considerable IT resources, you’ll likely get to a point wherein you need to outsource tasks such as infrastructure repairs, maintenance, and upgrades. This is true even if you have your own IT team. At times, the skills and experience of its members may be too limited to handle such tasks, or they may have high-value projects to prioritize and have no time for anything else.

When you do need to outsource IT services, you have two methodologies to choose from, namely break/fix and managed IT services. In this post, we’ll show you why subscribing to managed IT services is the wiser choice between the two.

Break/Fix IT support appears to be economical — but looks can be deceiving

As its name denotes, break/fix IT support is the type of service you avail of only when something in your IT system stops functioning properly and needs to be repaired. You ask an on-call IT technician to drop by your place of business, run diagnostics, offer options for fixing the problem, and implement the solution you choose. They then bill you for the hours they’ve rendered and for the costs of materials they used, if any.

You then operate normally and pray that it will be a while until you need to call on your technician again. At best, you’ll only need IT support a couple of times a year, which means you will not need to spend much on their services. However, experienced business people know that best-case scenarios don’t happen as often as they’d like.

Instead, relying on break/fix IT support may become costly for your business because of the following reasons:

Break/Fix IT support does not provide an overall IT strategy

As a small- or medium-sized business (SMB) grows, it tends to add IT solutions on top of its IT system based on their immediate needs. This results in a hodge-podge of apps and hardware that may not work efficiently together or does not factor in further growth past the short term. If this is the case for your business, you will likely have an IT system that will break often and require a lot of fixing — which means having to pay your on-call IT support a pretty penny often.

You may make the mistake of choosing shortcut solutions instead of more comprehensive ones

Once they’ve assessed your technical issues, your IT tech will present quick fixes that treat the symptoms or solutions that address the root causes of your problem but take much longer to implement. Since you pay your technician by the hour, you might go for the more economical option, but you’ll likely end up encountering the same issue over and over again. In the long run, this will ultimately cost you more than if you spent the money on fixing the underlying problem from the get-go.

You may end up waiting too long for your on-call technician — and for nothing

When you encounter IT problems, you’re likely to suffer costly downtime as a result. Being at the end of your IT technician’s waiting list can be painful, and it can be difficult to find another specialist on short notice. And regardless of how soon you get a technician to come over, you’ll be in for a world of hurt if they spend hours trying to fix things and end up failing.

Your business interests and your service provider’s interests are not aligned

To survive, your business must maximize profits in part by reducing expenses. This means that it’s in your best interest not to have IT problems, if you can help it. However, your break/fix technician earns money whenever you call them in to fix your IT problems. Unfortunately, this means that you may encounter unscrupulous service providers who may leave a few tech issues unresolved or sabotage your IT systems so that you’ll always call on them.

Fortunately, there is a much better option for you: managed IT services.

Managed IT services providers (MSPs) are IT partners you can rely on

Unlike break/fix IT technicians who only offer IT repair services, top-notch MSPs provide a comprehensive range of IT services that SMBs need in order to scale:

• IT consultation – An MSP determines the immediate and long-term IT needs of your business and develops an IT strategy that helps your business accomplish its goals.
• Strategy implementation – MSPs are partners with leading global IT solutions and are adept at implementing those solutions. From building secure network infrastructure to deploying cloud migrations to installing backup systems, MSPs can flesh out the IT strategies they pitch to you.
• 24/7/365 support – MSPs have a regiment of customer support agents who are always on standby to serve clients. These agents can help resolve most issues remotely (i.e., over the phone or via online chat), but MSPs can also deploy a team of IT technicians on site to fix more complex problems.

MSPs can provide all the services a growing SMB needs for a flat monthly fee.

Generally, MSPs can provide all the services a growing SMB needs for a flat monthly fee. While this may be more expensive than the break/fix method at the onset, subscribing to managed IT services is ultimately more cost-effective because of the following reasons:

MSPs create and implement IT strategies that result in more cohesive IT systems

IT systems that are built with compatible components tend to break less frequently and function more efficiently than hodge-podge systems. Additionally, systems that are built with future growth in mind will require less intensive reconstructions than systems that are built with components that can’t scale with you.

MSPs monitor your IT systems to proactively mitigate IT problems

Unlike break/fix technicians who only drop by when you’re already suffering from tech troubles, MSPs watch out for budding IT issues and nip these before they become full-blown problems. By doing so, they prevent costly downtime from ever happening in the first place.

MSPs’ IT experts have diverse specializations and experiences among them

On-call break/fix technicians are usually just one-man teams, which means that their knowledge of the ever-expanding field of IT is extremely limited. MSPs, on the other hand, are composed of many IT professionals who specialize in different areas of IT and constantly keep their knowledge up to date. Furthermore, they also deal with clients across different industries, and the lessons they learn from their varied experiences help improve the services they offer.

The growth of your business leads to the growth of the MSP’s business

Because of their subscription model, MSPs must work hard to make IT work for their clients. And when their clients’ businesses grow, these are likely to require more IT services, which will mean more revenue for MSPs. In other words, your business interests and those of MSPs are aligned. This makes MSPs invaluable partners for SMBs.

Break free from costly break/fix IT support by switching to managed IT services by CDS. To learn how we can gear up your business for growth, send us a message today.