“Proactive maintenance” is as synonymous to “Managed Services” as Google is to internet search. The entire premise of proactively managing IT for a small or mid-sized business is what delivers value to MSP clients.
You may remember the sales pitch you made not too long ago: “Dear Customer – XYZ Networks will make sure that we are constantly monitoring your IT network, ensuring that your critical data is being backed up, your environment is secured from any threats or viruses, and you are most up to date with your technology, so you can focus on your business.”
Every MSP sets out to make sure that they deliver what was promised to the client. Ground reality is, certain activities end up taking precedence and time over others. A “hair on fire” issue seems to come up constantly, one is behind on an internal or client project. Core proactive maintenance activities, also referred to as “centralized services” by some MSP’s, tend to take a back-seat, get ignored, and are taken granted for.
What impact could this have on your clients and your MSP business? Consider this – a client’s data backups didn’t run for 15 days, and your team couldn’t get to it. Now they need a file or folder restored, and there is no backup. Best case scenario for MSP – loss of a client (never a good thing). Worse case: lawsuit.
Just like everything else, someone at your organization needs to own this function, and take full accountability and responsibility for it. If your MSP does not have the bandwidth to do this, consider an outsourced offering. Several MSP outsourcing firms including ours offer such services, delivered on a committed service level agreement, and taking full ownership for certain aspects of the maintenance routines.
