Managed IT Services
Melbourne
Comprehensive Guide to Managed Services
What is a Managed IT Service?
A Managed IT Service is when some or all parts of your IT function is outsourced to a specialist company, known as a Managed Services Provider or MSP. The MSP takes full responsibility for the service, including the provision of monitoring, maintenance, resource planning, and support. Managed IT Services are provided on a subscription fee basis, usually paid monthly, which covers service management and support.
Typically, businesses and nonprofit organisations choose fully managed IT services for convenience, efficiency and performance. By gaining a team of experts, the stress of managing IT disappears. Costs are brought under control, as there’s no longer any need for specialists on the payroll. ‘Key man’ dependency is eliminated, as an MSP offers a complete team rather than a single individual. And the quality and performance of crucial information systems often dramatically improves, as it is in the hands of highly qualified IT experts.
Managed Services is growing in popularity for these reasons. Over many years, it has evolved into multiple distinct forms, covering everything from full management of an entire IT infrastructure to select components and services.
Specific disciplines have emerged, including managed security for detecting and responding to cyber breaches, managed backup and disaster recovery, and specific line of business applications delivered as a Managed Service. Common to all Managed Services is the advantage of delegation to experienced and specialised providers. This helps get the job of IT done better and faster.
Common Business Drivers
Motivators that drive the decision to outsource part of or all IT services to an MSP routinely fall into three categories:
Realigning the focus of internal resources
Allowing business to focus on strategic objectives
Bringing on board scarce IT skills rapidly (an example is Digital Transformation initiatives)
Successfully using a Managed Services Provider starts with clear objectives. Know what you want to achieve with a technology partner and share it with your Managed Services Provider. Shared goals deliver optimal performance.
Why Choose a Managed Services Provider in Melbourne Like Techware?
You might wonder if business IT managed services are worth it for your company, especially if you’re “only” a small or medium-sized business. However, managed IT solutions in Melbourne offer practical benefits that can streamline your operations.
Let’s compare keeping IT in house with outsourcing to a trusted MSP like Techware.
Aspect
Cost Efficiency
Melbourne-Based Expertise & Resources
24/7 Monitoring
Scalability
Proactive Maintenance
Focus on Core Business
In-House IT
Higher costs for hiring, training, and retaining IT staff
Limited access to specialized skills and latest tools
In-house team may not be available 24/7
Difficult to scale quickly due to limited in-house resources
Reactive approach to IT issues, which may lead to frequent downtime events
Internal team’s focus is divided between IT issues and strategic goals
Outsourced IT
Cost-effective managed IT services, with predictable monthly fees
Access to a team of experts and cutting-edge managed IT solutions in Melbourne
Fully managed IT services that come with 24/7 monitoring and support
Scalable IT solutions designed to adapt seamlessly as your business grows
IT management services for businesses seeking proactive solutions to minimize and avoid downtime
Outsourced IT management for Melbourne companies that want to keep a laser-sharp focus on growth, not IT woes
Scalability Issues, Downtime, Vendor Fatigue, and Other IT Challenges
Here are just a few example scenarios of persistent obstacles that can hold back your Melbourne company:
Scalability Issues
Businesses, particularly in the tech and retail sectors, often find themselves outgrowing their IT infrastructure faster than anticipated. They need to expand operations, hire more employees, or enter new markets, all of which demand scalable IT solutions. Unfortunately, many companies have limited expertise in the IT resources they need to evolve and thrive.
With Techware’s scalable managed IT solutions in Melbourne, your systems grow with your business, providing the flexibility needed to adapt to changing demands without disruption.
Downtime and Productivity Loss
Downtime cripples productivity, and businesses in industries such as logistics and healthcare — where real-time data and communication is critical — tend to be most affected. It only takes one server crash or network failure for hours of hard work and revenue to go up in smoke. In Melbourne’s highly competitive business environment, this is a risk you can’t afford.
Through proactive maintenance and 24/7 monitoring, we identify and resolve issues before they cause downtime, keeping your operations in top shape.
Vendor Fatigue
Managing multiple IT vendors, from software providers to hardware suppliers, can overwhelm even the most organised teams. Miscommunication and delays are often inevitable, which can leave a business struggling to find optimal solutions.
Techware’s vendor management services act as a single point of contact, enabling seamless communication and quick resolutions across all vendors. Our setup saves you time, energy, and frustration.
How Do Managed IT Services Work?
Managed IT services consist of several components, each designed to make your operations seamless. Some of these components may overlap, but the way the services are delivered and maintained follows a distinct path. Here’s how each key service in a fully managed IT services is provided:
24/7 Monitoring and Support
- Step 1: Setup
Techware configures monitoring tools to track your IT infrastructure. Including your networks, servers, and devices, in real time. - Step 2: Surveillance
Your systems are monitored round the clock to detect and mitigate potential threats before they escalate. - Step 3: Response
Alerts are sent to Techware’s support team, ensuring immediate action is taken to resolve issues, minimising downtime.
Proactive Maintenance
- Step 1: Assessment
Scheduled audits are conducted to identify vulnerabilities and outdated hardware or software. - Step 2: Updates
Techware implements regular updates and patches to keep your systems secure and efficient. - Step 3: Optimisation
Preventative measures are taken to enhance performance, guaranteeing smooth operations.
Vendor Management
- Step 1: Coordination
Techware acts as the liaison between your business and third-party vendors, such as software providers or hardware suppliers. - Step 2: Issue Resolution
Vendor-related IT issues are handled directly by Techware, saving you time and hassle. - Step 3: Review
Ongoing evaluations ensure that vendor services align with your business needs.
IT Roadmap Planning
- Step 1: Strategic Consultation
Techware collaborates with your team to understand long-term business goals and IT needs. - Step 2: Infrastructure Planning
A customised IT roadmap is developed, highlighting key milestones for upgrades, migrations, or expansions. - Step 3: Implementation
The roadmap is executed in phases, reducing disruption to your operations.
The Benefits of an MSP
Partnering with a Managed Services Provider (MSP) delivers a range of benefits and advantages. These include:
1. Business Alignment
Business and IT performance starts here. A good IT operation is aligned with the business. When properly aligned with strategic organisational goals, the IT department empowers the business by delivering technology that achieves defined outcomes. A good MSP takes the time to understand and connect with your business. They know your long-term success depends on it.
We execute the following steps to achieve business alignment:
- Roadmap: Effective roadmaps incorporate business goals, current IT state, future IT state, and the priority of the future state (based on business requirements). The roadmap is time-defined, establishing a clear path from present to future, generally with a timeframe of between 12 and 36 months.
- Quarterly Check-In: A regularly scheduled meeting with your MSP to cover strategic and operational performance. It assesses the roadmap, current issues, service performance, and raises any change requirements. This meeting is essential for progress tracking and informed decision-making that guides service delivery.
- Staff User Feedback Survey Report: While executives and engineers design and deliver managed services, users have unique insights into performance, useability, and suitability. Gathering user feedback is instrumental for service improvement.
2. Business Performance and Productivity
Ben Franklin once said, ‘Nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.’ Franklin’s time preceded computers; IT problems are a modern certainty in the workplace. Fortunately, MSPs offer comprehensive expertise to deal with issues rapidly and effectively.
Management Is Key
As an MSP, the delivery of quality IT systems is our sole concern. We manage all aspects, so your systems are always performing optimally.
Systems management is delivered with multiple techniques, including:
- Systems Monitoring and Alerting – Automated systems constantly scan for potential or actual problems, notifying support team members so rapid action is taken.
- Patch Management – Your software is updated, and security patches applied as soon as compatibility with all systems is assured.
- PC Life Cycle Management – Computer equipment can become obsolete fast. We establish realistic life cycles for your business, including planned replacement criteria and cycles.
With an MSP, you’ll receive support that enables better productivity and business performance. Our support is guided by four principles:
- 1. It’s unlimited – Your staff have the freedom of directly accessing support whenever required, without seeking approval. With a fixed price model, we’re incentivised to identify and eliminate root causes.
- 2. Service Level Agreements – The SLA defines all response times, so you know what to expect.
- 3. Problem Management – We identify and report on recurring issues and unresolved items to avoid repeating mistakes and eliminating workarounds.
- 4. Change Management – Change is a reality in IT service management. We manage change by providing reasons, quantifying impact, providing ‘rollback’ mitigation, and calculating anticipated downtime.
3. Business Protection and Continuity
Should disaster or cyber threats strike, your MSP has you covered.
- IT Health Report – Protecting your business and ensuring continuity begins with an IT health report. By combining system-generated insights with expert analysis, MSPs provide a clear and comprehensive view of your IT security and readiness for potential risks and threats.
- Backup Management – The business must define data assets and specify protections. Your MSP provides the necessary structures and mechanisms for effective backups in line with your policies. Backup configuration considers downtime tolerance, restore intervals, archive periods and the appropriate location and media for backup storage.
- Security Management – Security is an ongoing challenge. Your MSP manages your security technology, including external protection (such as firewall, email security, web security, and antivirus software) and internal protection (insider threats and breach detection).
Explore Our IT Solutions
Techware has the IT expertise for every challenge.
IT Support
Fast, friendly IT support for Melbourne businesses to keep your operations up and running and downtime to a minimum.
Cloud
Get the most out of the cloud with custom solutions that give you flexibility, scalability, and productivity while keeping your data safe.
Cyber Security
Protect your business with proactive cybersecurity strategies against evolving threats. From data breaches to ransomware, we’ve got you covered.
IT Consulting
Techware’s IT consulting services will help you make better technology decisions and align your IT strategy with your business goals for long-term success.
Frequently asked questions
Through detailed planning and a proactive approach, managed IT services ensure that your technology matches your business needs, accounting for risks, immediate objectives, and long-term goals, thus benefiting your business in various ways.
As your managed IT services provider (MSP), Techware will give insights into your business technology and notify you of any issues so you can make informed decisions regarding your IT and IT-related projects. Our IT support is readily available to troubleshoot problems, ensuring uninterrupted work. Additionally, we align your technology with your business objectives to maximise the benefits of IT while improving cost-efficiency. All of this helps give you peace of mind by securing your business and IT systems against the latest cyber threats.
We provide a variety of services to meet your various technology needs, starting with IT Strategy and Planning. We assess your IT, identify vulnerabilities, evaluate compliance, and create a custom plan that includes an IT roadmap that fits your business needs.
With IT Management and Monitoring, we oversee your IT systems, implementing patches without risking compatibility issues. We also develop robust data backups and comprehensive disaster recovery plans to keep your business operations functional in case of a disaster.
Finally, our IT Support service enables employees to enjoy unlimited and readily available support to troubleshoot any IT issue. With service level assurances and a help desk ticket system, we provide accountability, transparency, and insights into your employees’ user experience.
We combine industry-leading security tools with the Essential Eight cyber security strategies developed by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), including patch applications, multifactor authentication, restricted administration privileges, and more. In addition, our expertise in IT compliance ensures your business technology follows relevant regulations, averting penalties and legal issues
To make sure you don’t suffer any data loss events, our first step is identifying the data most critical to your operations in both the short and long term, to establish your business’s requirements. We then use that information to pick data backup measures and devise recovery strategies. After implementation, we constantly manage and monitor your backups to maintain continuous data protection. We also perform regular file restoration tests to check the effectiveness and integrity of the recovery measures.
Troubleshooting begins by defining the problem and its nature, context, and intricacies. With that as a springboard, we then delve deeper to identify the root cause of the problem so we can execute the appropriate corrective action. We will monitor and review the results to ensure that the issue has been resolved.
In addition to implementing the ASD’s Essential Eight security strategies — ranging from application control to Microsoft Office macro restrictions — we offer expertise in CIS and ISO 27000 standards. By combining these proficiencies, we help your business stay compliant, avoiding fines, penalties, and reputation loss.
While costs can vary depending on each business and its needs, our services generally fall between $100 and $150 per PC device.
Becoming a Techware partner is simple, especially with us guiding you through the entire process. We first assess your current IT situation, your existing infrastructure and resources, and your needs. Then we make recommendations to mitigate any risks identified in the assessment. Finally, we onboard your business, implementing the recommendations as well as managing and supporting your IT.
Of course. As part of our service, we discuss the unique aspects of your business to determine which services best suit your needs.
Yes, outsourcing IT is a beneficial investment for your business. IT problems are inevitable, whether due to cyber threats, human error, compatibility issues, or other factors. Traditional IT services can address problems as they occur but often do not tackle the underlying causes, while prolonging any disruption until they respond. Managed services, on the other hand, are both readily available at all times and proactive at monitoring your systems to identify and resolve potential problems before they disrupt your business.
In addition, partnering with an MSP means you don’t have to expend resources and energy on hiring IT personnel and technology management tools. If you already have an IT department, a co-managed IT setup can still be an advantage, as it allows time and focus on fixing IT issues to be spent on growing your business.
Your Journey with Us
As a leading Managed Services Provider, Techware’s key objective is supporting business growth through strategic delivery of world-class IT services and support. We start with discovery, roadmapping, and implementation. Then we seek continual improvement through ongoing support, optimising staff productivity and underpinning high-performance business.
Your Team
At Techware, we believe the difference lies not so much in what we do, but how we do it. As your MSP, our mission is to put you in control, equipped to make informed technology decisions in support of clearly aligned business goals.