Managed Services vs. Professional Services

The age-old debate about whether managed services vs. professional services is best for you is often settled by understanding the differences between the two.

During a time where a minute of downtime costs businesses as much as $5,600, uptime has moved to the forefront as an organization’s most essential commodity to secure and maintain.

From helping to maximize uptime, reduce costs, and improve day-to-day business processes, to providing advanced IT troubleshooting and digital transformation services, there’s quite a bit of ground to cover between both services. Due to these reasons, our blog today will go over:

• What are Managed IT Services?
• What are Professional Services?
• Managed Services vs. Professional Services Differences
• How to Meet (and Master) Your Needs With iTBlueprint

What are Managed Services?

Managed services providers (MSPs) deliver hands-on support covering an organization’s evolving infrastructure needs.

Compared to break-fix services, managed services deliver faster response and remediation times, which can save you time, money, and resources. Following implementation adoption, also known as onboarding, a full suite of services can be tapped into. These services include:

• Unified communications
• Onsite and remote troubleshooting
• Around-the-clock monitoring and support
• Data backup and disaster recovery services
• Network monitoring, support, and management
• Cloud migration, security, support, and administration

Among the most commonly outsourced managed services include hosting, data storage and backup, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and IT infrastructure.

Here is a quick breakdown of the advantages of managed IT services.

• Cost-effective
• 24/7 IT support
• Access to IT expertise
• On-demand resources
• Predictable monthly IT costs
• Leverage robust technologies

Lastly, it should also be noted that more businesses are outsourcing their infrastructure needs to managed services providers. In fact, it’s estimated that the managed service market will nearly double from $161.37 billion in 2021 to $311.32 billion by 2027.

 

 

What are Professional Services?

Professional services typically involve a one-time service provided at a fixed hourly fee.

Whereas managed services emphasize infrastructure support, professional services include more specialty-based services that include:

• IT consulting
• IT procurement
• Cloud migration
• Complex IT troubleshooting

Compared to managed services that function under an always-ready capacity, professional services are on-demand, more customizable around specific IT needs or projects, enable faster technology ROIs, and offer more granularity in terms of services.

Additional advantages stemming from professional services include:

• Fixed hourly rate
• No long-term commitments
• Exclusive vendor connections
• Business-specific specializations

Managed Services vs. Professional Services: The Differences

Covering service differentiators such as needs, pricing, and business goals are ideal places to begin.

By starting with your needs, you can find out whether a managed or professional service model best suits your needs. From there, you can scale your services to meet your needs while your IT provider works with you to develop an IT strategy roadmap for ongoing tech alignment.

Additional differences in terms of service delivery and approaches to keep in mind include:

Managed Services vs. Professional Services
Differentiator	Managed Services	Professional Services
Where?	Outsourced with local and remote support services.	Can be in-house, outsourced, or a mix depending on needs,  generally supplemental and project-based.
Response Times	Round-the-clock, proactive IT support for faster IT issue remediation.	Often not available during non-business hours; structured as break-fix.
Issue Detection	MSPs provide ongoing issue detection and response services for companies.	Companies are responsible for detecting issues and alerting professional service providers.
IT Support Approach	Hands-on, proactive IT support.	Reactive (break-fix), hands-off IT support.
Best Recommended For	Businesses with rapidly changing IT needs, that need greater support coverage, or want more long-term support.	Organizations with a capable in-house IT team but seeking help with business-specific services, task automation, etc.

 

Managed and professional services provide businesses with trustworthy IT support services that cover a wide scope of work responsibilities across an infrastructure , in addition to the ability to overcome specific challenges.

In the end, most companies make a decision that’s based on:

• Service level needs
• Industry regulations
• Current infrastructure state
• Budget and service affordability

 

 

Master Your Infrastructure and Technology With iTBlueprint

It’s easier to achieve your business goals with reliable assistance from a dependable source for managed services and professional services.

Whether you’re looking to improve your IT support infrastructure through managed IT services, need specialized industry regulation consulting, or are still confused about whether managed services vs professional services are right for you, iTBlueprint Solutions is here to help answer your questions.

Having serviced more than 180 businesses in Vancouver and beyond over the past 18 years, our experts understand what organizations need in order to master their technology, support, and infrastructure needs.

For more information on our managed and professional services, contact us today to schedule a free consultation.