Businesses invest large chunks of money in their IT systems and feel that they are crucial for their daily success. Their technological components store, recover, translate and manipulate data that the company holds. This in turn helps them to make informed decisions. Without proper and effective management of these components, deadlocks occur in companies, especially at the time of disasters. Hence, companies hire IT consultants and they help them to create and implement a disaster recovery plan.

Need for IT consulting services

This plan brings about business continuity by reducing any chances of downtime during disasters and even improves the recovery point of the IT systems. IT consulting companies offer you ideas and ways to improve your IT operations. They advise you to boost the efficiency of your network and save on costs by outsourcing certain services to a managed IT services provider.

Understanding the differences

There are a few managed IT service providers who also specialize in offering IT consulting services. However, differences exist between the two kinds of services. If you are a business owner and don’t know how IT consultancy differs from managed services, this article will help you find answers to some of the frequently asked questions.

What role is played by IT consultants?

Hiring IT consultants helps businesses to improve the supervision and utilization of their IT components. First of all, they analyze your existing IT systems to find out if everything is working smoothly. Then, they execute, install and administer them so that your company can simply concentrate on its major business functions. Best IT consulting companies find it suitable to understand their clients’ objectives first and then, equate the utilization of your IT systems with these goals.

What recommendations do they make to your business?

Your service provider recommends you to improve your current IT infrastructure and this is done by increasing efficiency, minimizing costs and improving overall IT operations. Based on your company’s structure, your provider offers you specific suggestions. But, some of the recommendations he often makes include:

•Trimming down energy bills through purchase of new and energy-efficient models

•Improving overall efficiency of your network by substituting your older machines with highly efficient newer machines

•Outsourcing jobs like data security and data storage that are best done by a managed IT services provider

What do managed service companies do?

Nowadays, companies outsource their jobs pertaining to managing and running an IT configuration to a managed IT service provider. This enables their IT employees to focus on more crucial business operations. Besides, you can enjoy these services at quite lower costs.

What services do they offer?

Being the owner of your business, you can determine which services you wish to outsource. But, if you have an IT consulting firm by your side, it can render you advice on the services that you must preferably outsource. A managed services company generally provides network security, data recovery, data backup, data storage and round-the-clock monitoring.

Therefore, you don’t need to choose between a managed services and an IT consulting company. The truth is that businesses most often find firms that act as consultants and provide managed IT services too.