Welcome to Business Bytes, where we break down complex IT solutions into digestible insights for modern businesses. In this episode, TCS leaders Barry and Ian tackle a common question from prospective clients: ‘Aren’t all Managed Service Providers (MSPs) essentially the same?’ Through their discussion, they unpack the crucial differences that distinguish quality MSPs, such as TCS, from others, particularly in today’s security-focused landscape. Whether you’re currently working with an MSP or considering one, this conversation offers valuable insights into what truly matters when choosing an IT partner for your business.

Episode Transcript:

Barry: [00:00:00] Welcome to Business Bytes where Complex IT solutions become digestible insights for modern businesses.

Hey, Ian. A lot of times when we’re talking to a prospective client they’ll ask us, aren’t ms. All MSPs pretty much the same. How would you help me to answer that?

Ian: I would say that a lot of MSPs do share a lot of similarities. But I think there’s a big difference between what. What they’re bringing to the table as far as experience and what their team is like.

And the way in which they approach handling it for your organization as a whole.

Barry: How it’s one, one flat fee for a suite of services. Yeah. Ian. A lot of times when we’re talking to prospective clients, one of the questions they ask us is, aren’t all managed services providers the same?

Ian: I think a lot of managed service [00:01:00] providers or MSPs they are, in charge of your it, right? And that can mean a varying varying different array of concepts, right? So how, what sets an MSP apart is gonna be. How they approach handling your it, right? Whether that’s gonna be an all encompassing suite of services, if they only do some, we only do this over here or the other thing is what kind of team they have and what expertise they have on staff.

There’s gonna be a lot of a lot of different vari variables between how each team handles your IT differently and the level of care which they take. What would you tell a

Barry: prospective client about what makes TCS different from the majority of MSPs out there?

Ian: Hang on now. I thought we didn’t quite have the answer to that one.

I’m supposed to come up with that on the spot. I would say that

Barry: Many MSP. Use a kind of a prescribed set of tools and they don’t have really the level of expertise to, to use those [00:02:00] tools to the to their greatest capacity. And one of the things that I think sets TCS apart from our competitors is our security focus.

The tools that we have, the team that we have, we are very focused on a client’s security. Whereas historically a managed services provider was really just about, maintaining a network, maintaining devices we’re really at the forefront of that where the security aspect has changed dramatically.

A lot more a lot more cybersecurity incidents today. And so that is our focus. We’re a managed service provider with a security focus. And we have two layers for that. We have a basic layer that’s. Appropriate for many companies. But then we also have a very high level layer that is for companies that are especially concerned about cyber incidents.

Not every company could use it, but but we try to delineate that so that a client who [00:03:00] maybe is a little smaller and can’t afford the really good product. They can still be protected.

Ian: Yeah, and I would say also that we really approach it as like a strategic partnership, right?

It’s not it’s not just, oh, something’s not working, lemme call my IT company. We really like to start off in the beginning building that kind of building that, that layer, if you will of your IT infrastructure and of all your systems so that. Number one, nothing’s gonna be out of date, right?

We’re gonna have modern and how do I say this? We’re gonna have modern and UpToDate we’re not on the bleeding edge here, but we’re gonna be stable, right? So one of the things is that we build a stable network and we build a stable environment that really meets the needs of the of the client, right?

And so building on that foundation makes things a lot easier to then secure. At varying levels, right? So if we’re building a strong foundation, then we can add we can always add security onto it quite easily. Or we’re really trying to build a secure function in the beginning, and then we can layer on those additional security [00:04:00] tools, help us take it to the next level.

Barry: Yeah, I think your idea of a foundation. To me is very helpful, where if you don’t have a good foundation, there’s no way you can build a house that’s gonna be stand or it’s gonna continually have cracks in the walls, et cetera. Where whereas we, you, you mentioned strategic partnership, we strategically engage with the client.

We say, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta get rid of old equipment. I’m thinking back to a client of ours that didn’t, wasn’t part of our TCS cyber core program. They had a Windows seven machine doing something in the back room that we really weren’t even aware of, and that was the inflection point that the bad guys use.

To gain access. And so the importance of strategically engaging where we say, let’s get rid of all of the old equipment that is going to be a, it’s gonna be a hole in your shield. If you will. And so that’s I think something [00:05:00] that we do as we strategically engage with the

Ian: client.

Yeah. I think also that some of these other, other MSPs maybe started out as maybe like a phone vendor or they started out doing something, like I said, phones, maybe networking or they just started out doing miscellaneous IT jobs here and there for varying companies. And I’m sure that worked for a while.

But TCS has been focused on that. The holistic it, for many years. So our focus is that of, we like to take a look at the environment as a whole and treat it as a large connected piece, right? When you go to the doctor and they say, Hey, this organ over here is having an issue, but it’s being affected by other things over here.

It’s not, it’s, you can’t just treat the individual pieces necessarily. You have to take it all in as a as one big organism and treat it in a way that they all are interplaying off each other.

Barry: I think it’s a great point where the copier company or the phone vendor has bolted on the networking aspect.

We have stayed true. All we’ve ever done is maintain and manage networks for clients. We’re more like a specialist in the medical [00:06:00] field rather than a. A general practitioner and yeah, a lot of those companies that have their core business, 60% of what they do is phones and they’re also dabbling in networks.

They obviously can’t be the best in all of those things right there. There’s gonna be negatives to, to how they’re handling that. And again, we’ve stayed focused on. We’re gonna manage your network. We’re not gonna do your website, we’re not gonna do your phone system. We’re gonna focus and do what we do really well.

Ian: Yeah. I think probably the, to build on that, one of the more dangerous pieces is when they start to dabble in cybersecurity, right? And they start to dabble, and so they start maybe adding some additional. Security products and say, Hey, we offer these security pieces, that’s great. But if we don’t know what we’re doing as far as like how to manage them and how to respond to security incidents and really how to build a security practice that is resilient and can withstand these attacks that we know are going to happen.

Right at TCS, we built our security team from the inside. We really, develop that [00:07:00] and an onsite on staff, local security team of folks to help through whatever security incidents might come up as they come up all the time. We pretty regularly deal with folks that are having email compromises or, constantly getting attacked and we’re finding those, remediating those, so before anything bad can happen in most cases.

And that’s really what we’re. That’s really where I think we set ourselves apart especially, is the fact that we’ve got our security team. Our security team is very experienced and has worked through many large issues over the years and really helped people’s businesses stay intact and survive these storms, right?

They’ve really been able to weather these storms. And just keep their businesses going

Barry: from our security team. We’re here in town, right? I like to tell prospects we speak southern, we find that our clients really like.

The fact that our support desk is here, they can understand them when there’s a phone call. And beyond that, we can put somebody in a car and go when that needs to happen. [00:08:00] Whereas many MSPs to save costs have outsourced all of that to overseas. And we think that’s again a thing that really sets. Us apart from many of our competitors.

Ian: If one of your competitors maybe had a you’re competing against a competitor for some new business, right? And they’re saying like, Hey, we do that right? Or we do this. Are there anything that sticks out to you as a red flag, as okay, I know that they’re saying that, but in this case, actually you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get a staff of people.

Sure. They may be 24 7, but they’re not gonna be here and they might be difficult to understand in the middle of the night when you’re trying to get things up and running. Is there anything you, that you’ve come across like that? Certainly,

Barry: I think one of the questions I’ll often ask a prospect is, so it’s the middle of the night, and you’re calling overseas.

Who do you think you’re getting to on the other end of the phone? Are you getting to that, tier three senior person who can really help you with your problem? Or are you getting a guy who’s just answering the phone? If you try to call Microsoft. You get the receptionist, you don’t get a technical person.

And I think that’s basically what you’re getting in the [00:09:00] middle of the night. You’re getting a receptionist, maybe they can tell you, reboot your computer or a few things, but it’s gonna take some time to get the right people involved. And again, we’re here. We can put that person on-prem in the morning.

And again, the 24 7, we find that 95% of our clients, their issues are issues that happen during the working day. Maybe a little bit into the evening, maybe a little bit early in the morning, but we’re available for that. So we’ve got the team members that are gonna answer the phone.

Ian: Yeah, I feel like that kind of it plays into the, what’s the difference between the response time and the outcome right here at TCS?

Our response times are very good. What’s the outcome that you’re looking for, right? So if you’re calling somebody in the middle of the night and you’ve got somebody to respond, what was the outcome? Really, you should be prioritizing, when you’re looking for that MSP partner, right? You should be prioritizing like, Hey, what was the outcome of that situation?

Did they fix the underlying issue? Did they slap a bandaid on it and move on? Put their tools in their trunk and get outta here. Or what happened? What was the outcome? Maybe [00:10:00] you can get somebody fast, but what can you get quickly? Is it gonna be an effective solution or is it gonna be just somebody to answer the phone?

So I like that point. So as far as what organizations really care about and what they should really be looking for, what gimme, gimme three points. Barry, how would you sum it up?

Barry: You want an MSP that’s that’s got a security focus. That is the number one issue for the day.

So I think that’s. If that would be first, you’re looking for outcomes. It’s great that somebody can answer the call, but are they here, are they able to really solve that problem? Even if that requires getting in a vehicle and coming to your location and then. Where are they really owned?

Are they part of a huge national VC event? Are they here in North Carolina? And your dollars are coming back to the state? So those would be my three main points that I would recommend looking for when when you’re searching for a new MSP Total Computer Solutions is the triads only fully local.

It founded still IT focused [00:11:00] managed service provider. With 35 years of experience.