FAQS About Co-Managed IT

Sometimes, even the most competent IT staff needs a little help. There aren’t always enough hours in the day to get everything done. Plus, your IT support and security shouldn’t have to stop when everyone goes home at the end of the day. What if your company decides to implement a new tech project? Who’s going to handle the day-to-day tasks while they’re busy on the new project? Moreover, would the new tech project benefit from expert input?

There are many reasons your IT department might need a little help, which is where co-managed IT services come into play. Even the most talented IT team can have knowledge gaps. Rather than putting new people on the payroll, you can outsource some of the work to experienced professionals through co-managed IT. Plus, outside professionals can help keep you up to date with the latest technology trends to make your company more competitive.

Companies of all sizes who use managed service providers (MSPs) are more likely to outsource IT work than any other business service. And for good reason. Using outside IT professionals can rescue an IT team that’s stretched to its limit, fill in knowledge gaps, and even save you money.

Let’s look at some common questions people have about co-managed IT services to help you decide if it’s a good fit for your company’s needs.

Co-managed IT services involve a combination of using your in-house IT team for some tasks while outsourcing other tasks to a third-party IT service. 

You can choose which IT services to keep in-house and which to outsource to an external IT service. 

For example, your in-house team might handle daytime support, troubleshooting, and software and hardware updates. Meanwhile, an external IT service would handle after-hours, weekend, and vacation support; security; and legal compliance. Or, you might hire an external IT company just to help with one specific project.

Co-managed IT services offer several advantages, including:

• Optimized efficiency
• Adding up-to-date resources, knowledge, and expertise from an external IT team
• Allowing specialists to perform tasks beyond the scope of your internal IT team’s experience
• Creating a partnership to support, supplement, and enhance your existing IT team
• Adding additional IT support for a small staff without paying additional salaries and benefits 
• Being able to pick and choose when to use additional IT support 

Rather than replacing your current IT team, adding outsourced IT services enhance your team when and where they need help. In Amoeba Networks we structure our service in a way where your in-house staff can focus on specific processes while we focus on others such as monitoring, remediation, security, onboarding, offboarding, etc.

Your internal IT team has day-to-day tasks for which they’re responsible. However, at the end of the day, they only have so much time and are limited by their existing skill sets. 

Co-managed IT supplements their efforts when your current IT team…

• Doesn’t have the time to get everything done
• Doesn’t have the skill set to handle specific tasks
• Needs to take a vacation or personal leave
• Needs help with a special project

At Amoeba Networks we can fill any IT role from CIO to project team to service desk. We can also take the place of all IT staff when you have none, or take the place of specific roles when you’re looking to expand.

If you find that you need additional IT support for a specific project or even for regular tasks, hiring a co-managed IT team can allow you to utilize the experience and skills of specialists without having to pay full salaries and benefits.

Additionally, if you had to hire new team members on a temporary basis, you wouldn’t be guaranteed to get quality workers who would feel a sense of loyalty to their work. 

A reputable co-managed IT assures IT security and expert abilities.

Using co-managed IT resources allows you to easily scale your IT department up or down on a per-project basis. Finding a reputable co-managed option for outsourcing your IT needs allows flexibility in the size of your team. 

Leaving the mundane tasks to an IT provider allows you to keep your IT staff high level and reduces the need for hiring and managing costly service desk staff. 

Managed IT can enhance your company’s IT infrastructure by providing extra services, taking care of mundane tasks, handling after-hours issues, and working on special projects.

Some services that a managed service provider (MSP) can assist your company with include:

• Lightening your overworked team’s workload
• Increasing IT productivity and efficiency
• Finding and eliminating security vulnerabilities
• Answering end-user-initiated support calls
• Onboarding and Offboarding
• Supporting overflow services
• Providing remote user support
• Providing after-hours, weekend, and holiday support
• Proactively monitoring systems and security
• Providing partial network management
• Transitioning to the latest monitoring, management, and ticketing platforms
• Offering a la carte services
• Offering consulting services for new processes and platforms and proven best practices

During the onboarding process, there may be a spike in effort as most MSPs work with your team to understand how you do things, but after that, it’s smooth sailing.

Pricing varies from company to company based on what services you need from an outsourced IT company. An MSP may structure its costs based on the number of users receiving help, the number of devices serviced, or an hourly rate.

It’s common to sign a yearly contract with an external IT support company and then receive monthly bills for services rendered.

In Amoeba Networks we quote equipment and estimate labor. Everything goes through an approval process. We discuss internally to ensure we purchase the right products for every use case. Your internal team can continue purchasing internally if preferable. 

Check out this article to review some of our pricing plans.

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you’re wondering if you are a good candidate for co-managed IT services:

• Do I need to increase the size of my IT team quickly?
• Can my IT team benefit from a broader range of technical skillsets?
• Is my company looking for new tools my IT department can use to increase efficiency?
• Am I looking for a fully-managed IT support plan?
• Do I need more end-user support?
• Does my company need someone to handle IT support after-hours, on the weekend, and during vacations?
• Does my small team have time constraints?
• Do I have a new IT project that needs support?
• Does my IT team have a knowledge gap?
• Does my company have a monitoring and management platform?

If you answered yes to even one of the above questions, you are a good candidate for co-managed IT services.

At Amoeba Networks we have a ticketing system, but we’re also open to communicating vía Slack and over the phone.

For everything else related to passwords/credentials, we use IT Glue –which is an industry standard MSP centric password manager. This allows us to comanage credentials to all systems.

Yes. We can provide access to all the systems we use to manage your environment. The systems we use are completely designed for this. 

We maintain inventory, credentials, and knowledge about your company. If there’s turnover with the internal IT, we have you covered.

They will, but if it doesn’t work out, we have a 60 day trial and short contracts. We will do everything possible to ensure we give good advice but also mesh well with your in-house tech staff.

No. We have a small dedicated group of engineers with virtually no turnover. You will always work with the same group of people.

Choosing the right partner for your co-managed IT needs is essential. Before you hire a co-managed IT company, it’s a good idea to do a self-audit to determine what you’re missing to meet your IT goals. 

After you have a list of needs, you can present it to the company you want to help co-manage your IT department to see how they can assist and what services they have that are within your budget.

Using Amoeba Networks for your co-managed IT services allows you to take advantage of years of experience from our IT specialists without having to pay an extra salary for someone of our skill level. Our affordable services can help you reach your IT goals by providing short-term or long-term IT support where you have a need.  

Contact Amoeba Networks today to find out how we can increase productivity, efficiency, and security in your IT department while saving you money.