Technology is easy, until it isn’t! Stay ahead of the curve with our world class managed services. We have programs for every business and budget, customized on demand.
MSP Standard
Other MSPs love to stuff everyone into boxes. Standardized, sterilized, and soulless, are not the words we’d use to describe our customers. But, we do have some basic needs that must be addressed for every business.
- Ongoing Technical Support
- 24/7 System Health Monitoring
- Patch Management
- Anti-Virus
- Content Control
- Disaster Planning
Through the use of automation software all of the above can be addressed very inexpensively, but it does require a monthly service fee assessed per device. But this is where most MSPs stop. They install their toys, bill you for them and run away with your cash while providing almost no service. To address this Intouch introduces what we call a hybrid MSP. We simplify our billing into the simplest possible terms, while also retaining the detail required to maintain flexibility. This flexibility is crucial to the long term health and independance of any business.
MSP Hybrid
To meet the needs of businesses, and to provide our customers with the competitive advantages they need, we need to be creative. That means getting outside of the box, shattering comfort zones, and watching out for our customers. We strive to be your advocate in this every changing technological landscape, but to do that we have to build trust.
That trust starts with what we call our MSP Hybrid agreements. MSPs want to boil all things down into a flat monthly fee that allows them to provide as little as possible, while profiting off the recurring revenue. Break fix shops want to spend as long as they possibly can fixing everything to maximize hours billed, but also don’t want to fix it so well you don’t come back. Both approaches lead to bad ends, trust is the true currency here. A fact that is used against the market on a regular basis. Our program is designed to change all of that, and leave all of the power in your hands.
Intouch’s Hybrid MSP program breaks down everything into simple line items on an invoice.
- 3rd Party Anti-Virus, charged / device / month.
- Content Control, can be charged per device, per user, or per network!
- Help Desk, charged per hour of engineer time you need per month.
- Managed devices billed per device, per person, or absorbed into your service hours.
Each item is separate, and avoids long term commitments whenever possible. You’re in control. You set the budget in advance and therein gain all the control of break fix hourly billing, and the reliability of a long term partner.
3rd Party Anti-Virus
Do you need 3rd party AV?
Organiations with no compliance requirements can likely get away with the free stuff built into Windows or OSX. In that case, we can cut that cost out and absorb it into our patch management for the platforms in question. Windows 10 is a terrific place where this savings really shines, as the difference between 3rd party AV 1% improvement in effectivness. Most businesses will not benifit from that 1% in any real way, to make matters worse 3rd party anti-virus has a chance to break Windows 10 platforms during their semi-annual feature updates. While this threat can be managed, it’s just one more thing to keep track on and test. If we’ve learned anything, keeping things simple is the best option.
Organizations with compliance requirements, which would include anyone working with sensitive information such as law firms, mortgage offices, and retail sales may need a stronger solution. In these circumstances Intouch will recommend a specific product to meet these objectives. Currently, we’re recommending Emsisoft products as their multivendor engine provides defense in depth within a single product, and the cloud console provides superior access to the reporting data required to meet regulatory guidelines.
Content Control
This is where the real defensive work happens. These systems are sold typically using cost savings of keeping employees on task. But in reality their value is largely in preventing those users from clicking on the wrong thing. The bad guys aren’t breaking into systems via software assaults anymore. It’s far easier and more effective to target the people behind the machines. A proper content control system is your first, last, and only line of defense beyond user training.
But even if you don’t have a content control system, it’s not going to be the end of the world. All modern browsers encorporate basic content control. But, which do you choose?
Our current recommended product is Untangle, running on world class hardware provided by Nexgen Appliances. Untangle is an UTM that provides powerful content control and defensive capabilities for any organization as well as remote access technologies. Not to mention the easiest reporting engine on the market, allowing executives and HR staff to audit employee behavior without engaging their IT assets. But it lives in the firewall in the back room, if your workforce is more decentralized a DNS based product would make more sense. All of these platforms are priced differently, and can be quite confusing. They also impact an organization extremely heavily, don’t leave this decision up to a whim or what’s easy. You might save a few dollars but the inferior experience will cost you so much more in broken systems, downtime, and frustration.
Content Control systems must be custom deployed for your needs, any organziation that tries to bolt it on as a value add is doing you a disservice! Let us show you why no owner or manager should out source this critical decision.
Help Desk
No MSP would be complete without a help desk, but even here Intouch stands apart. There are no tier 1 techs here. Every email, message, and phone call is answered and handled by one of our certified master engineers. It doesn’t matter if you have a simple printing issue, display problem, or advanced network configuration fault the same team handles the request. We do this to all but eliminate response delays. Gone are the days of requesting help and waiting hours, if not days for a response. Intouch prides itself on closing most incident reports within an hour of the request. Uptime is life, and your employes are paid to work not wait on your technical support team to fix stuff.
Competent engineers don’t grow on trees, and costs have to be contained. This goal can be met per hour, or via prepaid blocks of time. We want you to be happy, and have a well run network, so this is where you define a time budget we have to operate inside. This is yet another excersize in trust. There are no long term contracts here, unless you want one. We have to earn your business each and every month.