How to Modernize Your IT Infrastructure with Help from an MSP

What is IT modernization and why should you modernize?

A good place to start is to understand what is meant by the modernization of IT infrastructure.

Essentially, it means enhancing your IT infrastructure to keep pace with your changing business needs and the rapid evolution of technological innovation.

Innovation drives ever-newer capabilities that have the ability to transform the way business is conducted. But unless you adopt, adapt, and leverage emerging technology you will not be able to realize the benefits. Benefits that include competitive advantage, service differentiation, customer satisfaction, and overall positive business outcomes.

So how can a Managed Service Provider (MSP) help you modernize your IT infrastructure?

Modernization is a complex process that involves a mountain of expertise: You need to be able to evaluate your current situation, which means where you are coming from and where you are going. Then you need to align your evaluation results to a cohesive strategy that efficiently and effectively manages the digital transformation of your IT infrastructure to meet your business goals.

And therein lies the first benefit of working with an MSP – managing the complexity. Here are some key qualities to look for in an MSP.

Need insight on evaluating a managed service provider for your organization? Download this MSP Evaluation Checklist to ensure you select the best partner.

You Need a Trusted Partner.

When modernizing IT infrastructure, your goal is to work with an MSP that can be trusted to accompany you on this journey. In all likelihood, you already have a relationship with an MSP that provides some level of services that your business depends on. You have a history with them – and that can give you some insight into their reliability and capabilities.

Digital transformation and modernization of your IT infrastructure are not one-step activities. They are processes that take planning, time, and effort. Your MSP is not just another vendor – they must become a trusted partner that can go the distance over the long term as you transform IT organization and your business.

You Need Domain Experts.

The next consideration is IT infrastructure expertise. This is multi-dimensional by nature and can be broken down into three areas: Staffing, Technology, and Domain Expertise.

1. Staffing. Do you have the bench-strength and the skill set to cover all your modernization needs in-house? Probably not. Doing so involves a heavy investment in hiring, training and retaining IT staff – which makes for an expensive proposition.

You need to get the best out of your team. One of the main reasons to partner with an MSP is to augment your team to make them better, which takes these costs out of the equation. You should be able to rely on your MSP to provide the expertise to ensure the availability of the services your business relies upon.

2. Technology. MSPs are in the technology business: Their core competency is the ability to deliver services and infrastructure management reliably. In order to do this, they need to maintain a vast number of technologically capable systems. These include sophisticated tools to monitor, manage, and rapidly diagnose issues in complex IT infrastructures and networks.

Once again, your MSP takes on the responsibility of maintaining and managing these systems – freeing your organization from the need to do so. They are constantly modernizing their delivery platforms to provide the services you need. This is a key aspect when it comes to keeping up with emerging technology trends, such as operations tools and management platforms.

3. Domain Expertise. Your MSP most likely provides services to a wide variety of clients engaged in different kinds of businesses and commerce. This gives them a broader knowledge base of trends, services and possibilities when it comes into how technologies can be used to leverage business needs.

As you go about modernizing, your MSP should be able to suggest solutions that you may not have thought of on your own. They should also be well positioned to provide advocacy and coordination across the vendors, tools, and platforms that play supporting roles in the IT infrastructure digital transformation that is specific to your business.

Getting There From Here.

At the end of the day, your primary focus is on running your business successfully. You need to understand how your business workflows and services are supported by the underlying IT infrastructure. In order to grow and outpace the competition, you need to develop and execute a strategy that expands upon this basic understanding, with concrete steps to modernize and empower your IT Infrastructure digital transformation.

As you know, your IT infrastructure is a complex web of interactive elements, including networking, computing, and storage hardware, plus all of the associated software and processes that come with the estate under management.

An MSP is an ideal partner to accelerate this process. Your MSP should provide the requisite expertise to help you navigate the technological challenges as you proceed towards these essential business goals.