Delta Airlines made headlines1 when some 2,000 flights were grounded in August 2016 as a result of a data center outage. The resulting cost was a staggering $150 million. While the cost of the Delta incident may have been an extreme example, data center outages cost an estimated $730,000 per incident, with some reaching millions of dollars. When businesses take the steps to implement a third party data center, the risks of an outage dramatically decrease.
With so much at stake, making wise choices in regard to a company’s IT needs is vital to ensure smooth operations and minimize potential problems. One of the biggest choices companies face is whether to handle their IT maintenance needs in-house or to use a third-party maintenance provider to handle such things as desktop support, network maintenance and data center operations. While there may be issues to consider when deciding whether to use a third-party provider, with the proper selection there are many advantages a third-party company can provide.
The Advantages of Having a Third Party Data Center:
Scalability
One of the biggest advantages of using a third party data center are the economies of scale. For companies with many different locations, even something as basic as a hardware or software upgrade can be a logistical nightmare.
A third-party provider, on the other hand, often operates on a larger scale than all but the biggest of companies. This often includes staffing capabilities that go far beyond what the average company has access to, or steep discounts on hardware purchases. As a result, a maintenance provider can tackle product rollouts more efficiently than many companies handling it strictly in-house.
Improved Focus
Increased focus is another benefit of using a third party data center. For many companies, an IT department is a drain on resources, both financial and intellectual. Even relatively small IT departments can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the ongoing training necessary to help them stay current.
In contrast, by using a third-party provider, companies are able to stay focused on their core business, letting the provider handle their IT needs.
Expertise
Another significant advantage of a third party data center is the wide range of expertise it can bring to the table. For companies that do maintain an internal IT department, it can be a challenge for those departments to have the necessary expertise to handle the ever-increasingly complex array of desktop, mobile and cloud-based platforms that must be supported.
Third party maintenance providers, on the other hand, work with a variety of companies across virtually every industry. This gives such providers an almost unparalleled breadth of expertise, including certifications and clearances, that few individual companies can match.
Reduced Risks
As the study at the outset demonstrated, computer or network outages of any kind can be costly—sometimes catastrophically so. Many small to medium-sized companies lack the resources or staff to have an around-the-clock IT department. Should there be an outage during off-hours, the cost of such an incident can quickly escalate.
By choosing a third-party provider, however, even the smallest of companies can benefit from 24/7 support, significantly reducing the risk of an outage, not to mention the associated cost of one should it occur.
Cost
By combining economy of scale, reduced risk, improved expertise and helping your organization stay focused on its core business, one of the single biggest benefits of a third party data center is cost savings. In many cases, the combined benefits of using a third-party provider have resulted in organizations saving anywhere from 50 to 90 percent2.
For many organizations, venturing into the world of third party maintenance providers can be a new and intimidating prospect. Issues such as technical competency, cost pressures and security clearance cause some organizations to hold off selecting a third-party maintenance company. More often than not, however, the benefits far outweigh the risks, saving money and providing a level of expertise and quality far beyond what many companies can provide internally.
Learn about how Maintech was able to offer third party maintenance to a leading manufacturing company!