Doing the stuff you’re good at is so much easier if someone else does the stuff you suck at. This is the guiding principle behind managed IT services. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are companies who take on the care and feeding of your IT requirements so that you can be better at business and sleep stress-free.

But all MSPs are not the same animal. They come in all shapes and stripes. So, let’s take a shallow dive into the different types of managed IT services that exist and when they might be right for you. We’ve chunked them up into three-ish types, because why not?

Types of Managed IT Services, Using a Poorly-Chosen Metaphor: Pizza

Here’s our take, using Ignition Bad Metaphor No. 34: Let’s say your business IT ecosystem is a deep dish veggie pizza (our copywriter won’t let us have meat in our blogs). With extra olives and pineapple. No mayo, because that would be gross.

Managed Services Type 1: Just the Basics

Some MSPs are built to give you just the pizza crust. They’ll give you the basics: sound IT infrastructure with security holes plugged and your ecosystem monitored 24/7. This might involve:

• An audit of your current IT environment to see what you have and what’s vulnerable, inefficient, or dead.
• A cleanup of the environment to improve security and operational efficiency; things like software updates and patches, backup automation, and server efficiency.
• Day-to-day management, including monitoring and reacting to incidents.
• A helpline for your people to call if something goes horribly wrong.

Good for you if:

• Your business is very simple.
• You love your IT team and want them to enjoy more fun work like strategy or geeky conferences.

Managed Services Type 2: Business Improvement

Some MSPs are built to give you the crust plus the tomato topping. This means they’ll provide all Type 1 services, plus some services that help your people work better, faster, or funner. They may serve you delicious business optimization services such as:

• Mobile device management, which has so many business advantages that we just can’t even. Faster and more accurate onboarding, breathtaking security superiority, and a masterly compliance tool. You get it.
• Cloud migration, optimization, and management: good for scalability, agility, and/or remote working.
• Spares management: cleaning, repair, and safe storage of spare devices ready to re-use. No need to worry your little head about what to do with unused devices, and great for closing that awkward asset lifecycle gap for compliance.

Good for you if:

• You’re going for a spot of digital transformation.
• You want to enhance the scalability of your business.
• You have a remote or semi-remote workforce.

Managed Services Type 3: IT Specialists

MSP specialists shower you with metaphorical cheese, olives, pineapple, and extra pickles because they specialize in that thing you need to take your business to a whole new level. Some may specialize in specific segments of IT and some may specialize in your industry or stage of business.

Security Specialisms

If you’re sweating vinegar because you’ve been breached, you might want an MSP who provides Security-as-a-Service. These beauties will optimize and manage your cybersecurity for you. They’ll take care of:

• Data loss prevention.
• Email and web security protection.
• Antivirus and malware management.
• Monitoring and intrusion detection.
• Security training for your people, e.g., phishing training.
• Secure infrastructure configuration.
• Gap remediation for compliance frameworks.

If you can hear a weird popping noise, it’s probably your jaw unclenching because you can relax now. Your data breach nightmares are over.

Good for you if:

• You’ve been breached and you’d really rather not do it again.
• You’re looking to extract some profitable contracts from big companies that demand high standards of cybersecurity.
• You’re going for compliance accreditation.

Sector Specialisms

Some MSPs are specialists in particular sectors such as those with complex data access needs, like banking, legal, or healthcare, or special child protection requirements, such as education. They may have specialist knowledge of the legal aspects of IT within these sectors and can configure your IT in response. Or, maybe they specialize in collaboration or process platforms for design or manufacturing, which is what you do.

Stage Specialisms

Sometimes it’s not what you do, it’s who you are. Some MSPs (i.e., us) specialize in IT for small businesses or venture-backed start-ups. Start-ups, for example, have unique IT requirements at each stage of their growth. They’ll need:

• Quick, effective onboarding when they’re scaling up.
• All the compliance when they’re attracting investors or big projects.
• CTO or CIO consultancy advice to create or develop an IT strategy or support IT governance.

Good for you if:

• You’re special.

Yes, But What About the Money?

Unfortunately, our yummy metaphor ends here – IT services are not nearly as cheap as pizza. Paying for managed IT services is one hell of a variable. That’s because how and what you pay depends on the type of service you want and who’s providing it. You’re usually looking at:

• A flat rate per seat or device for scalable services such as MDM.
• A subscription service model for things like cloud management.
• A one-off consultancy fee for special projects.
• Tech support payable by the hour or minute.
• A bit of everything for hybrid models of support.

But don’t let that complexity put you off because your service level agreement (SLA) will clarify what services you’re getting, how you’re paying for them, and what level of support you can expect. For instance, what’s the max response time for helpdesk inquiries?

Do you need IT support, and if so, how much? Getting the right types of managed IT services is supposed to be a fun, happy thing because it’s something that can really rocket up your business in a good way. We’ll help you find what’s right for you. Our big boss Noam is waiting for your call right now, bless him.

Ignition is Silicon Valley’s best (and friendliest) IT security, compliance, and support team. Contact us today–chatting about IT support and cybersecurity is our favorite thing to do!