When you’re trying to pin down the right Managed Services Provider (MSP) for your business needs, it’s important to know if your business will be covered by a dedicated engineer and how you can benefit from Co Managed IT Services. Having an engineer who knows your business and is ready to visit onsite promotes a more reliable IT environment. You may even want to leverage a dedicated level 2 technician, depending on your unique business needs. Whether you have a nimble IT team or you don’t have one at all, outside IT support with a Dedicated Support Engineer (DSE) provides a single point of contact.
That means your employees and customers have one place to go for any issues—network equipment, hardware, software, application support, and cloud voice. Your business can resolve issues sooner and protect your business from disruption with a dedicated engineer backed by the right MSP.
Every organization has varying support needs. Partnering with an MSP that can provide dedicated engineers and level 2 technicians via Co Managed IT Services or partnering with an operations leader when necessary helps your business tap into outside skills while saving finite resources. This outside support has meaningful business benefits that promote flexibility and alleviate employee burnout.
First, let’s start with the definition of a dedicated engineer, also known as a DSE or Dedicated Support Engineer.
What is a dedicated engineer?
A dedicated engineer is a skilled information technology expert assigned to your business to provide robust support, including routine and as-needed tech support to empower a more resilient business infrastructure.
A dedicated engineer can work remotely, onsite, or hybrid varying by your business needs. With a dedicated engineer employed by your managed services provider, you don’t have to cover typical employment imperatives like employee benefits, payroll, costly background checks, or Human Resources involvement. Your DSE adds business value without an excess of payments and paperwork. Your MSP has that covered.
Instead, bringing in a dedicated engineer from outside of your organization eliminates the challenge of finding a dependable and qualified expert while conveniently connecting you with an IT professional who works as an extension of your team.
Now that we’ve covered some basics, let’s look at how having a dedicated engineer can benefit your business and bottom line. You’ll see how an outside or Co-Managed IT Services approach with a trusted MSP can propel breakthrough business results.
1. Gain fast, expert support.
A dedicated engineer knows every aspect of your business. While you benefit from deep, outside expertise, a dedicated engineer learns your
business and drills through every layer of your IT environment. A dedicated engineer understands your technology approach, goals, and processes.
Your MSP and engineer work hard to be an extension of your team and learn your business the way a direct IT hire would. A dedicated engineer gets to know who to connect with across your IT and operations teams to prioritize and resolve issues with immediacy.
Your DSE understands how you and your team members use technology to achieve critical goalposts across your company. Having a dedicated IT professional with outside expertise empowers a deep partnership between your dedicated engineer and business members with a shared purpose and goals.
When you work with the right MSP, this extension of your team will be someone who is driven to meet and exceed your expectations. A Dedicated Support Engineer also brings a fresh set of eyes to your IT infrastructure and processes, able to identify any potential vulnerabilities that often go overlooked as cyberattacks and help you streamline approaches to further unburden your team.
2. Save time and money with your contract DSE.
Taking a proactive IT approach is critical to preventing unnecessary costs and disruption. With changing user demands, evolving cybersecurity approaches and threats, and fast-emerging technologies, IT leaders can no longer afford to operate in reaction mode. To stay up-and-running and competitive, it’s imperative to address problems before they become issues, or to respond immediately if and when disaster strikes.
You can increase your business resilience and agility with a dedicated IT professional to protect your organization from cybersecurity threats and attacks attacks to downtime to data loss and other performance issues. You can mitigate thousands or millions of dollars in business losses and damages without the cost of a senior IT FTE with advanced knowledge and credentials.
Meanwhile, having an outside engineer also saves valuable time and resources. You are no longer constantly having to explain your tech stack, IT processes, and company culture to outside contractors who aren’t familiar with your business or working style on a one-off basis. It’s the job of a dedicated engineer to understand your business in the same way a company-hired engineer would while bringing the advantage of outside and specialized IT expertise.
3. Alleviate IT burnout and confusion.
Working alongside an outside engineer from your MSP takes a Co Managed IT Services approach. If you work in IT then you already understand that the pressures and demands on information technology teams are accelerating much faster than IT budgets.
Working with a dedicated engineer or even level 2 technician helps to alleviate some of the stress from your already inundated IT team. This is important because global studies show that IT teams are incredibly vulnerable to professional fatigue.
Virtually half of It workers are at “high risk” of burnout. Employee burnout becomes even more problematic for IT Cybersecurity professionals—more than half are at risk of burnout. Burnout can impact your business and IT infrastructure significantly.
Professional fatigue leads to less attention to detail, a declining user experience, and more IT team turnover with subsequent re-hire and re-training costs. Probably most concerning, when your internal IT team is overburdened, they are more likely to overlook security red flags that would normally be simple to pinpoint. Slower IT response times can also create a disconnect between teams and result with employees going rogue without consulting the right resources before opening a file or using an application that can impact the company network and customers growing exasperated.
Instead, with a dedicated engineer working in alignment with your internal IT team, you can immediately unburden them while improving IT infrastructure collaboration, communication, planning, and strategies. Rather than dealing with the hassle of hiring and re-hiring IT support team members, you’ll reduce turnover and have a remote or onsite engineer to provide support and prevent tribal knowledge from holding your technology initiatives back.
Next, and this is maybe the most important, bringing an outside engineering expert in to help with Co Managed It Services can help you and your team navigate IT decision-making. Dedicated engineers tap into their experience across technologies. They know what works and what doesn’t. They are proficient in the latest technologies, IT services, and trends. Outside experts also keep a close pulse on evolving cyberthreats and other infrastructure risks, and how to prepare with cloud back up and immutable backup while acting to avoid them altogether.
With this level of outside expertise, you can have the information you need to make smart IT decisions for the best possible performance and outcomes when you need it.
4. Stay current on the latest tech and trends.
Having a dedicated support engineer ensures you remain competitive and ahead of the curve with insights into the latest technologies, services, and best practices to keep your business agile and protected from cybersecurity approaches. The only constant in technology is rapid change. If you work for a small-to-medium sized business or even a corporation with thousands of end users, (internal and external to accommodate), you probably don’t have any extra bandwidth.
That means you don’t have time to research and assess the latest tech evolutions that can guide smarter IT approaches and ignite breakthrough business results. But a dedicated engineer does.
With a Co-Managed IT Services approach, you can tap into breakthrough technologies and intelligent approaches with your DSE to unleash greater value from your MSP and continue preserving vital internal resources. Dedicated support engineers are on top of the latest business technology updates and offerings. That means you have constant and direct access to a SME who can help you evaluate the pros and cons of adopting new technologies.
5. Rely on a Dedicated Engineer remotely or onsite.
Another major bonus of having a DSE working for your organization is the flexibility of how and where they work dependent on your
business requirements and needs. With most Managed Service Providers you can select the level of support you need and decide if that warrants a dedicated support engineer onsite full-time or if a remote DSE is more suited for your IT team. You get to decide what’s right for your business and build the dedicated engineer’s working requirements and place of work around that.
What questions should you ask to identify the right DSE?
These questions can help you find the most qualified dedicated engineer to meet your business needs:
- Is the DSE a solo contractor or a member of a Managed Services Provider? If it’s the former, there’s more room for downtime and gaps in support. Freelance IT professionals of any kind have the risk of less consistency and reliability than a contracted and reputable MSP. If they get sick, take time off, or step away for a family crisis, you could be left without a point of contact for your Co Managed IT Support Services indefinitely. Contracting with an MSP offers more assurances. A Managed Services Provider cannot and will not take time off or have breaks in service support. Instead, most offer 24/7/365 support to alleviate unnecessary strains from your already inundated IT team. An MSP with substantial resource can keep your Co Managed IT support running nonstop and tackle any complicated issues with immediacy.
- How qualified is the DSE and their organization? IT vendors are expected to provide extensive documentation when resolving frequent day-to-day server problems. However, in reality, no amount of documentation can span the ongoing and growing IT issues and challenges. It’s important to understand the level of knowledge a DSE has about the specific technologies your business is leveraging. Your Dedicated Engineer needs to have a fundamental knowledge (at a minimum) of how servers, cloud environments, cybersecurity parameters, computer and print networks operate. A Dedicated Support Engineer needs to be versed in all the nuances and ready to build new strategies and implement them on the fly whenever your organization is planning a pivot. Ask the dedicated engineer or MSP about their qualifications, certifications, length of experience, and relevant degrees. Experience and certifications matter.
- If there’s a Managed Services Provider involved, do they have references? It’s critical to consult references and investigate Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Google Reviews to get a clearer picture of an MSP, their reliability and reputation, and whether they are the type of organization you want to partner with on Co Managed IT Services with a DSE. Before entering an MSP contract it’s important to understand who you are partnering with to support IT goals and business needs. Ask the MSP for a free assessment to gain insights and see if there’s a fit for your business.
See if Co-Managed IT Services and a Dedicated Engineer are right for your business.
Connect with one of Fruth Group’s managed services experts to learn how an MSP-backed DSE can support your business and empower better performance outcomes. Our team members speak with you one on one to understand your specific technology requirements and IT and business goals to identify a fit.
