6 Ways Managed IT Services Outshine Break-Fix Support

Nowadays, any organisation’s IT is its lifeline. It’s a strategic business enabler which keeps teams productive and able to work at their best.

When it comes to looking after your IT estate – and having a plan for when IT problems arise – organisations like yours have two options:

• Break-Fix Support: When you experience an IT issue, you call an IT provider to fix it. This support is purely reactive; a technician only swoops in when damage to productivity has already occurred – and doesn’t necessarily keep other issues at bay.
• Managed IT Services: Where an IT provider maintains constant, non-intrusive oversight into your IT estate, proactively monitoring for, and resolving, issues as they arise. They are also on hand in case of totally unexpected IT problems and often for strategic IT advice too.

Both have their benefits and drawbacks, and the decision you make for your business is ultimately up to you. But if you want an IT support option that proactively prevents minor issues before they turn into major crises – managed IT services is the way to go!

The Reality of Break-Fix IT Support

I think many of us will have faced a situation like this at one point or another.

Say you’re all geared up for an important stakeholder presentation or meeting on the day’s agenda. Everyone’s ready and raring to go - but the relevant tech just won’t play ball.

Maybe the connection to the network is patchy or a piece of essential software is chucking out an error that has everyone scratching their head.

Whatever the issue, panic starts to set in.

With break-fix support, your IT support provider will need to be reached first and foremost, then informed about the issue. And depending on the nature of the problem (and their own availability) they may be able to implement a remote fix, or they may need to schedule in a site visit.

Hours can tick by without a resolution in sight, causing productivity losses, and potential reputational damage with any external parties affected. This can be the reality of reactive IT support.

Due to the nature of managed services, on the other hand, managed IT providers can be a lot more proactive. Because they use secure tools to oversee your IT from afar, they are often able to fend off (or at least notify you of) potential problems on the horizon before they impact your business.

However, managed IT support provides far more advantages than break-fix - even when you’re not in IT crisis mode! Let’s investigate.

6 Ways That Managed IT Support is Better Than Break-Fix

1. Preventative, Future-Proof Support vs. Ad-Hoc Repairs

For you to engage with break-fix IT support, something needs to be noticeably broken and impacting productivity to begin with. Therefore, the issue has already caused you downtime, disruption, and most importantly, cost; and that’s before you bring your break-fixer’s ad-hoc, hourly rates into the mix (more about those shortly).

Yet the goal of managed service providers is to keep their clients’ IT up to date, well-maintained, secure, and running smoothly, 24/7. This allows managed IT providers to better flag, diagnose, and address tech hiccups before they snowball into time-sucking, systemic IT problems. And yes, if a totally unanticipated tech issue does hit, managed IT providers generally cover remediation as part of your service agreement.

Break-fix providers rarely monitor, update, or maintain your IT outside of applying a required fix, potentially leaving you vulnerable to future snags. However managed IT partners provide all this and more, with many also keeping your business trucking with complementing managed services like software licensing, IT security services, backups, the list goes on.

2. No Surprise Costs, Likely Long-Term Savings

When it comes to IT issues, prevention is often better – and cheaper – than cure.

On the surface, break-fix may seem like the more affordable option. After all, you’re simply paying an hourly rate for support when a problem occurs. But in reality, break-fix repair costs are as unpredictable as IT problems are – and can quickly spiral upwards depending on the complexity of the problem and whether out of hours and/or on-site support is needed.

Managed services, on the other hand, often operate on a fixed, monthly fee, regardless of the quantity of support requests. This makes managed IT support expenses far more predictable and easier to budget for.

It bears repeating that managed service fees generally include ad-hoc fixes and repairs, so you do get that “break-fix” service, just without the wildly unpredictable fees!

I like to think about investing in managed services as investing in peace of mind – much like how you invest in insurance. You may not always need it, but boy are you glad it’s there when you do!

3. Focus on Continual IT Security

With current cyber threats being as they are, it’s more important than ever to keep a firm grip on your business’s cybersecurity.

In fact, the UK government’s 2024 Cyber Breaches Survey found that 47% of micro businesses and 58% of small businesses identified a breach or attack in the 12 months prior to being canvassed.

Amidst this landscape, managed service providers will often provide their clients with practical security protections. This usually includes some level of continuous security monitoring, proactive threat detection, and managing continuous security updates; all of which put an organisation in a better position to ward off threats.

However, there is rarely any ongoing security oversight with more reactive, ad-hoc IT providers. Security measures are often only implemented once the provider has been asked to do so, potentially once a vulnerability has been identified – or worse, already exploited.

4. Consultative, Strategic IT Support

Tech is now such a critical part of doing business that it requires a much more strategic approach than it has previously been afforded. Any IT expertise – be it internal or external – should go beyond merely fixing tech when it breaks down.

Effective IT management now requires a certain level of understanding a business’s strategic IT needs, recognising any new functionality requirements that may lie on the horizon, and maintaining a clear picture of the organisation’s cyber risk landscape. Simply having an IT wise owl on side with whom to mull over potential IT developments can also be invaluable to small business leadership.

Due to the more involved nature of managed service providers, they are better set up to provide this more strategic, consultative relationship as part of their ongoing service. Break-fixers, on the other hand, only generally interface with an organisation when it has identified a critical problem.

5. Better Compliance with Standards & Regulations

Investing in managed IT support can help you maintain regulatory standards and compliance; especially those concerned with IT and data such as Cyber Essentials or ISO27001.

This is because many of the practices we’ve already discussed here; like continuous monitoring, managed updates, maintaining security controls, and automatic backups; are independently recognised as being essential for minimising information security risk.

Additionally, many regulatory standards require extensive risk assessments and audits. Part of an MSP’s job is to document your organisation’s IT infrastructure as that helps both of you better understand the inner workings of your IT and networks. This can include risk assessments, technical logs, and remediation plans – often crucial to regulatory compliance.

6. Enables Business Growth & Change

Managed IT services can be a real asset if your business is going through a period of rapid change or growth.

As part of their ongoing fees, managed service providers will help you manage the IT associated with new workflows, new business direction, and with onboarding and offboarding team members - flexibly and securely accommodating the natural ebb and flow of your business.

The tech side of onboarding and offboarding can be a headache for smaller organisations. But managed service providers can be instrumental in sorting out your tech so incoming staff can be ready to roll from day one, and outgoing staff devices and access will be revoked promptly and securely.

Break-fix service in this area is a little more piecemeal. Their ad-hoc charging structure all adds to the costs of changing technical workflows, and of incoming and outgoing staff.

The Clear Winner: Managed IT Services

All in all, managed IT services provide organisations with a much more reliable, cost-effective, and secure method of managing their IT needs. The continual support, the range of services, and ongoing access to strategic IT expertise makes investing in managed services a no-brainer for many businesses.

Break-fix support is better than no support at all. But in today’s always-on, tech-reliant, cyber-threat-filled landscape, you need a provider with a much more involved, strategic approach that can only be achieved with managed IT support.

If you’re looking for a reliable, managed IT support partner in the North-West, book your totally obligation-free IT check-up with our head techie, Mark, to see if working with Penken Technology is right for you.