Advantages for small to medium business on managed services

Why pay someone monthly to do nothing, when you can pay them when they actually do something???

This seems to be the common misconception for why Break/Fix contracts are better suited to SMB's. But if we scratch below the surface of Managed Services Contracts what additional support do you actually get over Break/Fix.

• Remote Monitoring

• Managed Storage/Backup

• Help Desk

• Patch Management

• Vendor Management

• Warranty Management

• Future Planning

Remote Monitoring is a service key to proactive management of your environment. It allows for the Managed Service provider to capture small issues before they become big Problems.
Managed Storage and Backup allows for scheduled backups/restorations of your environment to ensure if there was a major failure in your hardware, you can be back up and running as soon as possible.
Help Desk means you will have someone on the end of the phone when ever you having an issue no matter how big or small.
Patch Management will ensure that all your Software is up to date and isn't reducing productivity due to small bugs leaking in.
Vendor Management takes the hassle of dealing with 3rd parties and allows you to concentrate on keeping your business running.
Warranty Management removes the inconvenience of  dealing with vendors when something fails.
Future Planning allows you to make informed decisions about your IT systems going forward, as your provider understands you environment intimately.

Break/Fix contracts work for short term resolutions (Reactive Support), but they do not help with keeping your systems up to date or allow for future IT growth (Proactive Support).