As a managed IT service provider ourselves, we strongly encourage every business owner to meet with the person and/or business who provides their IT support services at MINIMUM annually (and here are our five reasons why if you’re curious).
If you already have that annual meeting on the books or are thinking about scheduling it soon to prepare your business for 2025 and beyond, it’s a good idea to go with a few questions that will help you determine if the services you’re receiving are meeting your business’s needs and goals. Lucky for you, today we have the top five questions we would ask if the shoe was on the other foot.
- Is our business positioned adequately to ward off cybersecurity threats?
- Why it’s important: The threat landscape changes rapidly. Ensuring your MSP (Managed Service Provider) is up-to-date with the latest cybersecurity protocols and threat intelligence is critical for safeguarding your data and operations.
- Follow-up considerations: Inquire about specific measures like endpoint detection, regular patching, and proactive threat monitoring.
- Are there new technologies or upgrades we should be considering?
- Why it’s important: Technology evolves quickly, and new tools can improve productivity, security, and efficiency. Your MSP should keep you informed about beneficial updates or trends.
- For Example: Ask about cloud services, automation tools, and software that could enhance your business operations.
- How are we meeting compliance and regulatory requirements?
- Why it’s important: Compliance with industry regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, CMMC, NIST) is vital to avoid fines and maintain client trust. Your MSP should ensure your systems align with these standards.
- Follow-up considerations: Request documentation or reports that show compliance checks and updates.
- What was our overall system performance this past year?
- Why it’s important: Understanding your system’s reliability helps gauge your MSP’s effectiveness and determine if changes are necessary. Consistent performance and minimal downtime are essential for business continuity.
- Follow-up considerations: Review detailed reports on uptime statistics, issue resolution times, and incident responses. Your MSP should have data available for your review at your meeting.
- What is our current backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan, and has it been tested recently?
- Why it’s important: A reliable BDR plan is essential for business resilience. Regular testing ensures that it will work in an actual crisis.
- Follow-up considerations: Verify the frequency of backup tests, ensure that if an outage were to occur your business could be up and running again quickly. If needed, request a simulation test to see how fast the recovery would take and make changes if needed to meet your goals.
If your annual meeting with your current provider left a lot to be desired, or they dodged having it at all maybe it’s time to make a change. For a limited time, new customers can also take advantage of our holiday offer (see details below).
Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.
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This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, leading provider of trouble free IT services for businesses in California including Merced, Fresno, Stockton & More. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/valley-techlogic-inc/.
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