Many organizations use managed services providers (MSPs) for a range of basic IT services such as help-desk support, network monitoring, security updates, operating system patches, backup management and so on. While those are all important tasks, they don’t begin to cover all the ways an MSP can support your business.

Although the consequences of data loss are well understood, a shocking number of businesses don’t have an adequate backup strategy in place. Recent research from IDC finds that 60 percent of organizations across North America and Western Europe experienced unrecoverable data loss over the past 12 months, largely due to infrequent, inadequate or nonexistent backup routines.

In a time of economic uncertainty and ongoing budget constraints, IT organizations can’t afford to make mistakes with their technology purchases. For most, accessing essential IT services and solutions through a managed services provider (MSP) offers a great deal of investment protection.

When an e-mail server crashes, a network hub goes on the blink or a mission-critical application fails, companies with limited or overburdened IT staff often depend on a managed service provider (MSP) to come to the rescue. However, this technology-centric perspective doesn’t take full advantage of the benefits an MSP can offer.