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While small businesses, like their larger counterparts, need end-to-end services to keep them running smoothly—file sharing, software, and security as a service to cloud backups—a less-experienced MSP may simply be riding the cloud surge to keep their doors open.

As the Forbes Technology Council notes:

“…so many MSPs are newbies and/or are opportunistically hanging out where the action appears to be. It appears that the accent today is more on “provider” and less on “service.” A fair number of MSPs have taken to selling the cloud — a “best of times” development at first blush.” 

Sizing up your MSP…

Aside from basic services, does your MSP stand ready to do the real heavy lifting in times of Disaster Recovery, or handle hybrid installs with your latest SaaS applications?

SMB owners often place their networks ‘at risk’ on many fronts when timely security updates are shuffled to the bottom of their to-do lists. What’s more, just attempting to keep ahead of the latest IT developments can translate quickly to poor productivity in light of ever-changing market conditions.

Vetting your MSP…

Make sure you’ve made a list of questions to ask your potential candidate. including:

  • Do they offer more than off-the-shelf, basic services—can they tailor services to your specific needs?
  • How many years in the business?
  • Staffing: Level of engineering experience?
  • Is the service level agreement fit your needs? Penalties for not meeting requirements

Ask the tough questions….

A ‘biggie’ is making sure the MSP is SSAE (Standards for Attestation Engagements) compliant, offering 14-day retention, for example, with its managed backups, as well as “application-level protection, advanced monitoring, and multilevel intrusion prevention, SSL capability, hardware firewall, and IP-restricted FTP.”

BluWater Technology can offer your company levels of expertise tailored to your growing needs. Contact us to learn how our services can help your business run more efficiently: we improve bottom lines by bringing ‘fixed costs’ to your operation’s IT expenditures.

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