Co-Managed IT Services are becoming more relevant to business needs daily. Pressures and demands on IT teams are actively mounting, but budgets for hiring FTEs aren’t. IT and Help Desk services are all too often thought of as replacements for IT departments. This abundant misnomer can make team members and decision-makers alike apprehensive about Co-Managed IT Services and other Managed Services Provider (MSP) offers. There’s already growing concern among IT professionals with advancements in AI, and the discussion of outside IT support might be panic-inducing for your team members. They may worry that MSPs offering Co-Managed Services can make their jobs and their employment irrelevant.

The ongoing shift in the tech talent market is enough to put any technology professional on edge. But these supporting services exist to unburden Information Technology teams that are already stretched thin. Think of them as a lifeline.

Your IT team can let go of manual tasks, basic Help Desk requests, and behind-the-scenes technology management on the cloud and servers to zero in on key business transformation initiatives and other strategic technology goals.

In some cases, MSP IT Services like Help Desk and other areas can supplement gaps where an IT team normally would exist. A large swath of smaller businesses may only budget an IT Director sans team. Other organizations may lump technology under an operations director or COO with limited internal IT resources and knowledge. But the business use case for Co-Managed Services looks a lot different for every company.

This blog explores Co-Managed IT Services, what they are, how they help, and how you can decide if they’re the right fit for your business.

What are Co-Managed IT Services?

They are exactly what they sound like. These services can be defined as a model empowering technology leaders to back internal IT teams with the knowledge, support, efforts, and best practices only an MSP can provide. With Co-Managed Services, technology leaders and internal teams can pinpoint areas of technology management and support that are slowing down key areas of the business and creating employee burnout. Global research shows that IT teams are especially susceptible to this type of professional fatigue. Almost half of IT professionals are at high risk of burnout. In IT Security, that number jumps to more than half. That’s because with big data, growing tech stacks, IoT, and increasing cyberthreats, nimble IT teams are busier than ever.

But with Co-Managed IT Services, businesses can avoid IT employee burnout that can drive turnover and reduce productivity. This service model empowers technology leaders and IT team members alike to select which areas they are comfortable handing over to an MSP to manage and which are better handled in-house. The purpose of Co-Managed IT is to build a partnership with an MSP that can support your existing IT team while streamlining their work areas and positioning them and your business for greater agility and success.

Co-Managed Services aren’t new to IT, but demand for the service has spiked as IT demands and roles constantly evolve and expand. The role of IT has grown exponentially in a post-covid digital age. Remote and hybrid workers and BYOD approaches mandate additional layers of security and user support. That’s where they come into play. These MSP-backed services are not intended to replace your IT team. Instead, it’s the opposite. Co-Managed Services exist to alleviate employee burnout and turnover, to retain your IT talent.

What are the benefits of Co-Managed IT Services?

Managed IT services have a host of business and employee advantages:

• Scale IT support up or down with flexibility. With Co-Managed IT Services, MSPs can provide you with a scalable IT services and support solution. You can easily adjust your IT support services with your changing business needs. Your team members can continually evaluate where Managed IT Services can fill gaps, and where they may be becoming redundant.
• Discover value with the just-right level of IT support. Working with the right Managed Services Provider, Co-Managed IT Services can save businesses financial resources (technology service fees and valuable time allocated for your IT teams). Partnering with your in-house and IT team, you can decide which IT services and areas of support can help you meet business demands and prevent gaps from becoming black holes. With an MSP and Co-Managed IT, you can meet your technology budget requirements while unleashing a competitive edge—keeping your business agile and ahead of the curve. Co-Managed Services can also save your team from the additional expense of multiple outside contractors with one unified point of contact.
• Enjoy flexible and easier-to-manage IT infrastructure. You’ll have greater flexibility to manage your business IT infrastructure in a way that makes sense for your specific company requirements and your IT team. The possibilities are endless and allow you and your team to reimagine your approach to your technology environment and find new ways to empower more effective collaboration and productivity. You and your IT team decide which IT Services, areas of support, tasks, and manual processes you’ll hand over to a trusted Managed Services Provider. That means you can focus on your customers and the most vital areas of your business.
• Navigate specialized and changing technologies. Partnering with the right MSP, you can use your Co-Managed IT Services to tap into outside specialized skills and expertise. With Co-Managed Services you have instant access to support and manage complicated and new technology areas. These areas of expertise might include managing and implementing cybersecurity solutions and services, cloud services, cloud server management, and migrations, server care and maintenance,  network infrastructure management, and work station support.

Are Co-Managed IT Services right for your business?

There are a variety of business use cases for Co-Managed IT Services. These can vary by business size, needs, capabilities, and technology and knowledge gaps. Co-Managed IT Services can be the right fit for a brand new startup, a small-to-medium-sized business, or an enterprise-level corporation. Here’s how you can decide if Co-Managed IT Services are right for your business.

Co-Managed IT Services are probably the perfect fit for your business if you are looking to:

• Support your nimble IT team and deadlines. Even at enterprise-level organizations, IT teams are often left with the least amount of resources and staffing budgets. You may have just a few people supporting the needs of hundreds or thousands of employees while balancing escalating technology demands. When your IT team is small or just dealing with higher expectations, your productivity and employee retention level are at risk. IT team members on leave or on vacation, new projects, and growing demands from the c-suite can crush your IT team. Co-Managed IT Services can boost their work satisfaction, ability to contribute to the business in a meaningful way, and employer loyalty. In today’s always-on digital age, Co-Managed Services can help IT teams, and their employers stay ahead of the competition. Managed IT Services don’t replace your in-house IT team. Instead, These services support and empower your IT team so you can conserve vital company time and IT talent.
• Take on new IT projects with confidence. With changing customer demands, IT teams are tasked with leading and implementing new technologies and development to accommodate an increasingly complex digital landscape. The C-suite and board may want to advance business practices and the customer experience in novel and unique ways. It’s easy to forget the amount of work required to transform the way you do business. It’s important to remember how new projects and areas of interest can impact your existing and already busy IT team. With Co-Managed IT Services, your IT team has a capable partner working as an extension of your team. Co-Managed Services enable IT professionals to work alongside other technology experts to support technology advancements and early adoption of future processes, solutions, and best practices. Your IT team works with Co-Managed IT Services professionals to deliver new projects or support technology logistics and operations while your internal IT employees drive the project with ample time and resources.
• Streamline your IT environment management. Leveraging a platform that helps you efficiently and effectively manage your IT business environment is paramount to your business success and customer outcomes. Without monitoring and Management Platforms, IT teams can miss red flags that can quickly become serious business issues with a negative impact to customer retention and profitability. With Co-Managed IT Services and input from your internal IT team helping to steer processes, your MSP can document them and use them to optimize your IT environment. Your internal and external end users will benefit from agility and productivity gains. Managed Services Providers actively invest in management platforms and approaches that your IT team can rely on with support available from your Co-Managed IT Services. Your IT team will benefit from a partner that can ensure you have the right monitoring and management platforms in place to protect and empower your business.
• Continue supporting a scaling business. Whether your IT team is supporting a startup or a business enterprise, if your business is growing then your technology and IT support needs are too. A fast-scaling business creates growing pains. They’re a good problem to have, and when it comes to your Information Technology team, Co-Managed IT Services can be the easiest solution.

What can Co-Managed IT Services do for your business?

While it varies by your Managed Services Provider (MSP), Co-Managed IT Services can deliver a broad variety of services and multiple areas of support. With a flexible MSP, your IT team can help you indicate which Co-Managed Services would be the most beneficial to supporting their bandwidth and business requirements.

Here are just a few areas where Co-Managed IT Services Providers can deliver breakthrough business outcomes and quick results:

• Help Desk, End User, and Workstation Support: As your company and user needs grow, a Co-Managed IT Services provider can alleviate the time and resources used on internal and external desktop support. Whether an employee is having issues with connectivity to your internal network, or a customer is having issues navigating to the right spot in your client portal, Co-Managed IT Services bring a responsive and robust set of IT Help Desk professionals on to act as an extension of your team. With complete endpoint workstation management, you can improve user experience with desktop performance monitoring, mitigate dangerous vulnerabilities with patch management, and protect your IT data and investment. Plus, you’ll be able to gain deeper insights and visibility with executive reports including asset and inventory reporting.
• Cloud, Server, and Network Monitoring and Management: Automate and secure your IT business environment, allowing your internal IT team to focus on new projects and strategic initiatives. Meanwhile your MSP actively manages and monitors your IT infrastructure to continue improving performance and supporting growing data loads and business demands while mitigating risks to your business.
• Specialized Projects and Technologies: Partnering with your Managed Services Provider, Co-Managed Services can support your business and IT team as you dive into new areas of technology and look to advance internal and external IT platforms, projects, and processes at a level your IT team may not have the current level of knowledge to support. A Co-Managed IT Services Provider brings more outside knowledge into play to help you navigate the latest tech trends and best practices, providing an unparalleled user experience.

The first step to leveraging Co-Managed IT Services is ensuring you have the right Managed Services Provider to support a partnership that adds value and benefits your internal team and business at large.

Let’s Talk Co-Managed IT Services. Fruth Group is ready.

Connect with one of Fruth Group’s managed services experts to learn how your business can benefit from Co-Managed IT services. Our team members take the time to understand your unique technology requirements and IT and business goals to decide if Managed IT Services are the right fit for your business.