Today’s successful business leaders know that making the best use of technology is as important as having the best financial and marketing support, yet for a small business, taking advantage of the latest technologies can be a minefield.

An IT strategy gaining widespread acceptance within a small business can involve outsourcing the most complicated technology infrastructure to a specialist, while continuing to manage simpler IT in-house. An Institute of Directors survey of small and medium sized businesses found that the popularity of this ‘hybrid’ approach has grown from an adoption rate of 1% in 2004, to 27% in 2006. With the latest survey results soon to be published, and IT having become no less complex in the interim, hybrid IT strategies look certain to have grown yet more.
 
A managed hosting provider is an industry specialist that operates its own data centre, an IT facility in which all of the most complex IT resources a business might need are located. The organisation provides server, communications and applications infrastructure, all managed by experienced IT technicians to ensure agreed service levels are met. By providing the back-end digital plumbing, managed hosting providers enable companies to use the latest technologies, without the burden of managing the infrastructure. Small and medium sized businesses can concentrate on the business benefits of technology, for example enabling a sales team to securely access the prospect database while on the road, rather than worry about keeping IT systems running.
 
Outsourcing complex IT functions not only enables small and medium sized companies to focus more on their business, it also provides a level of security and availability of service that a typical small organization could not provision in-house. By choosing the right managed hosting provider these issues become their problem. Consider the increasing importance of storing financial records for lengthy periods of time. What would happen if a company’s office was flooded or burnt down? Would a self-managed IT system cope? A managed hosting provider will take care of data back-ups and have solid plans in place for emergency scenarios.
 

Additional to operational benefits, the services of managed hosting providers often work out less expensive than the alternative. Even the organisation has managed to hire a competent IT manager at an affordable salary, that person will need to invest more money in creating and maintaining the complex IT systems required to run today’s internet-ready applications. The figures just don’t stack up in favour of in-house provision as the managed hosting provider has the advantage of economies of scale, which, in the competitive hosting market, it passes on to the customer.
 
Another positive aspect to working with a managed server host is that they can operate in a more environmentally sound way. IT, it turns out, isn’t just expensive and complicated; it produces a lot of CO2 through the electricity it consumes. It would be very difficult to manage a small IT system to provide the service a business needs as well as be environmentally sensitive. Some large managed hosting providers have been able to use their scale and technical expertise to provide services with genuinely small environmental impact. Working with one of these innovative IT service firms can offer excellent IT services and not add to carbon footprints.
 
Working with a trusted managed host provider can enable small companies to take full advantage of innovative IT opportunities, without stumbling over the challenges. In a 2007 Vanson Bourne survey of 400 UK decision makers at small and medium sized companies, 40% of respondents admitted to difficulties in managing their IT. Resources, which until recently were the preserve of big companies, are now available effectively for their small counterparts to rent, at a price that makes sense. 

Kelly Smith, managing director at Smartbunker