What is Managed Services?
Less than a decade ago, IT service companies began offering “Managed Services” contracts which promised a reduction in IT support costs through constant system monitoring. This delivered a huge profit to IT service companies (as much as 400%), but did not deliver much benefit to the client. The use of unskilled help-desk staff, cheap cookie-cutter monitoring solutions, and a sell-and-run mentality continues to plague the Managed Services market to this day. Business owners quickly learned that the Managed Services racket was not delivering much value, and many companies went back to staffing IT internally or using traditional break/fix providers.
Proactive Support is Not Managed Services!
IT support services is always a tender subject with business owners. While it is necessary to invest in technology, the cost of maintaining that technology presents an unknown that many companies simply don’t have a means to calculate. For nearly 30 years, ASG has maintained a reputation for providing top-notch IT support services, delivered by a select, highly-skilled staff of engineers and support technicians. Using this experience, ASG has developed an alternative to the traditional Managed Services offering.
What is Proactive Support?
ASG’s Proactive Support Service is an alternative to traditional MSP (Managed Services Provider) offerings. Proactive Support is not simply system monitoring, and support. It is designed to prevent most system hardware and software issues before they become support issues through a specialized and proprietary toolset of continuous system audits and reporting. This foundational technology, combined with scheduled manual maintenance, backup, and hardware evaluation, puts ASG’s Proactive Support in a league of its own, distinct from traditional MSP providers. With ASG’s Proactive Support, the traditional MSP help-desk staff is replaced by our experienced team of software and hardware experts, and an extensive arsenal of tools designed to remedy issues quickly and permanently.
What We See, & What We Don’t
Businesses can put themselves at great risk with some Managed Services companies. In many cases, low-level, and even temporary help-desk staff gain access to file directories, email accounts, and proprietary business documents on your network. Even with signed non-disclosure policies, the traditional MSP may be handing your competition the keys to the castle. The MSP industry employees tens of thousands of low-level IT support people who quickly move on to other companies, or who wash-out over time due to lack-luster performance.
ASG’s proprietary multi-layer monitoring and security programs allow us to see everything from a hardware functionality level (device), as well as a software functionality level (application). In the rare instance when we may require access to your data or expose directory access, that task would be carried out only by a member of ASG senior staff bound closely by a non-disclosure agreement, and only through a remote session in your presence.
The Three Flavors of ASG Proactive Support®:
Watchful Eye®
The Watchful Eye® for your business. ASG Proactive Monitoring delivers a host of necessary IT services to small companies at a very affordable price. With ASG Proactive Monitoring, companies can reduce IT expenses substantially more than what is possible with traditional “reactive” IT sourcing.
The fee for Watchful Eye® service is typically far less than most Managed Services offerings, and includes monitoring of all of your servers, hardware, and critical devices, using ASG’s proprietary tool set. An ASG certified engineer will then alert you to possible issues that would otherwise translate into disruptions and technical emergencies. For most small companies, the implementation of a Watchful Eye® Proactive Monitoring system translates into significant yearly savings over both break/fix and traditional Managed Services offerings.
In the event that hands-on IT services are necessary, ASG Proactive Monitoring partners receive a deeply discounted rate, and priority scheduling. Companies that use ASG’s Proactive services greatly reduce emergency and after-hours service time. Call us for a comprehensive, flat-rate quote and put a Watchful Eye® on your IT.
Proactive Complete®
The ASG Proactive Complete® plan combines the Watchful Eye® with a complete offering of IT support and services comparable to what a company would expect of an internal IT employee, at a fraction of the price. With ASG Proactive Complete®, you, and your staff are freed from the concern surrounding IT staff vacations, sick-days, and other employee or single-resource related liabilities. All of your scheduled IT tasks, audits, and maintenance will take place on schedule, with detailed reports delivered on a regular basis. Proactive Complete® gives your staff a dedicated help-desk, equipped with skilled technicians who know your IT infrastructure and are prepared to solve problems quickly and permanently.
The ASG Proactive Complete® plan includes most standard IT services at no extra cost, however, if there are incidents that require service above and beyond those included in the contract, or if additional engineering is required for any reason, clients under Proactive Complete® plans receive those services at deeply discounted rates. In many cases, for a growing company, this discount pays for the contract. Call us for a comprehensive flat-rate quote and put Proactive Complete® in action.
Mission Critical®
Many companies have applications that require an IT staff well-versed in the configuration and support of specialized systems*, or custom environments. In many cases, ASG can offer these skilled resources as an integrated part of our Proactive Support services. ASG’s Mission Critical® support services are designed to give companies all of the benefits of ASG’s Proactive Support with the added resources of support for ERP, CRM, MRP, database and other systems without maintaining internal staff or outsourcing those services to a third party.
If your company runs a specialized software platform, and you are interested in Mission Critical® support, contact us for a detailed quote.
*For companies running the SouthWare ERP platform, these Mission Critical® support is immediately available.