Is Your IT Service Really “Proactive”?
“Proactive” – It’s a word you’ve most likely heard before from your IT Service provider. It’s bounced around repeatedly by Managed Service Provider (MSP’s) when they reference how they handle your Cybersecurity, Network, and even your Cloud Storage.
The truth is most are not exercising the word “proactive” in its entirety. While they may have the best intentions in mind, they’re creating an illusion of the term. Whether they mean to or not, they’re misleading you into thinking you’re fully covered, when you most likely aren’t.
So, let’s start over by introducing the full meaning of the term Proactive as it relates to IT Management.
Proactive IT Service is the continuous process of review and alignment of IT systems to a defined set of industry standards and best practices. When aligned properly, it leads to:
- Better Security
- Fewer Issues
- Lower Risk & Elimination of Unknowns
- Optimal Performance of an IT Network
Most I.T. Providers think that the services they provide are “proactive” and may unintentionally mislead you to believing this as well.
Here are some ways that I.T. Providers make you think they’re being “Proactive”- They use “proactive” tools like an IT monitor. IT monitors are not “proactive” as they can only alert you AFTER something has already gone wrong.
- They do “proactive” maintenance such as patching and system updates. Patching and system updates are an absolute necessity for any computer system to work just like gas is a necessity for your car to run. These necessary tasks cannot be considered proactive.
- A ticketing system. This is a great tool for tracking and managing IT issues, but by itself does not have any “proactive” functionality.
- A “proactive” report showing basic network activity (i.e. the number of helpdesk tickets, number of viruses caught, server uptime, server storage, etc.). This basic report is typically auto generated by a provider’s IT management software, and although it provides some useful information, it’s just a lagging index report showing you what happened last month.
- On-site visits. If a technician comes to your office to pick up the laundry list of IT issues or just walks around to install patches and system updates (aka basic maintenance), then there’s really nothing “proactive” happening on site.
- Do we have a set of IT related KPI’s that are measured and reported/interpreted to us?
- Do we have a process for identifying recurring issues and eliminating them?
- If a disgruntled employee took a flame thrower to our servers, do we know what the process and timeline would be to get our business back up and running?
- Outside of having a firewall and antivirus, is there a process that is followed and reported to us to ensure we are truly secure?
- Do we regularly receive updated network documentation?
- Is our network regularly reviewed and is a report with risk/deficiencies provided?
- Do we have a process for measuring our systems against industry standards and shown specifically where we are not in line?