1. Control Operating Costs of Entire IT Network

First off, implementing managed network services will reduce operational, maintenance, service, hardware, software, and infrastructure costs. A recent CompTIA poll of 400 IT and business professionals found that 46% of organizations that use managed service providers for some or all of their IT needs say that they have reduced their annual IT budgets by at least 25% as a result of adopting managed services.

Moreover, these costs become better controlled and more predictable when they take the form of a fixed cost expense. Furthermore, upgrade costs are lowered since they are taken care of by the managed network services company. This arrangement also reduces the cost of ongoing maintenance labor. Additionally, requiring less physical hardware onsite means fewer capital expenses will be incurred. Finally, costs that can occur with initial and ongoing training, employee turnover, and technology upgrades are kept to a minimum or altogether eliminated.

2. Proactive Network Maintenance and Issue Prevention

Managed network services companies free up enterprises to focus on their primary business goals. They do so by combining high-performance network availability with increased speed and flexibility, to drive business growth. Companies that provide network services have the infrastructure in place to support quicker implementations and upgrades. And ongoing proactive and preventative maintenance checks and enhancements continually occur in this advanced network setup. Furthermore, managed network services provide access to state of the art technologies that companies might not otherwise be able to afford.

Likewise, issues are more easily preventable with the continuous monitoring services provided by network services companies. West UC offers Network Monitor – a complete WAN management system containing tools to easily manage hardware, circuits, and VLANs. Notifications can be configured on these types of systems so that system-halting issues can be prevented before they interrupt daily business operations.

3. Enhanced Network Security

Managed network services provide enhanced security for the entire voice and data network. Most network services providers include products that protect the enterprise from spam, malware, viruses, intrusions, and inappropriate web content. In this policy-secured configuration, all transactions, business critical applications, and data are kept safe and secure.

4. Enables a High Level of Network Availability

For any enterprise, it’s important to consider the level of network availability that is required for voice and data access. If a high level of network availability is vital for an enterprise, then it may be appropriate to enlist the services of a managed network services provider that can guarantee levels of uptime in the 99.999% range.

Civic services like fire, police, hospital, and emergency and rescue are all prime examples of organizations with communications networks that demand a high level of uptime – at all times and in all circumstances. Like these groups and other enterprises in similar situations, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) made with managed network service providers offer a guaranteed level of availability, network uptime, and response and resolution times for addressing network issues that can leave these organizations feeling confident that they have a reliable and stable communication system.

5. Improved Quality of Service (QoS)

Other benefits enterprises can experience with the right managed network services company include: improved voice quality, enhanced call routing, and better network management from built-in Quality of Service (QoS). Managed network services provide customers with a high-speed, high-quality MPLS backbone across a variety of internet connections.

QoS can be ensured by prioritizing traffic based on packet analysis, source, destination, and even business use case. With an application-aware network, issues can be adjusted on the fly so that congestion and bottlenecks are avoided while peak performance is maintained.

6. Maximized Performance and Increased Productivity

Through a comprehensive managed network service solution, providers are able to seamlessly join voice and data networks and optimize them in a way that maximizes network performance. These tools can provide methods of time and cost savings that reduce support time and enable effective monitoring, preventing network hiccups and downtime. As a result, IT staff members - and enterprise employees in general - are able to perform their daily tasks more efficiently and effectively, increasing their overall productivity.