What Is The Difference Between Managed Services And Break-fix?
An Analogy: If you take care of your car and do scheduled maintenance such as oil changes, tune-ups, tire rotations, inspections, etc., your car will run a long time with very few problems and costs will be at a minimum. On the other hand, if you neglect your vehicle, you’ll have expensive problem after expensive problem with no end in sight. It’s the same with computers. Ongoing, scheduled maintenance reduces problems and keeps the equipment functioning longer, reducing expenses and helping your employees and business to be more productive.
Managed IT Services is a business model that emphasizes the proactive management of computer systems through 24/7/365 monitoring, rapid response to and resolution of issues as soon as they are detected, and the provision of regular, scheduled maintenance to reduce or eliminate ongoing problems — keeping computer networks up and running with minimal downtime. With Managed Services, your computer systems are seen as an asset to your company. Managed Services is the business model that XSolutions follows.
The Break-fix model waits for equipment and systems to fail first before taking any action. Businesses using a break-fix vendor are more prone to extensive downtime and unexpected high emergency repair bills. With break-fix, your computer system becomes a money pit, wasting time and precious profits on needless repairs and lost productivity.
Managed IT Services | Break-fix |
• Service Agreement with a predictable monthly fee covering a range of services | • No contract; all services are billable a la carte |
• Systems monitored 24/7/365; Small issues resolved before becoming big problems | • No monitoring; They fix it when you call |
• Workstations/servers proactively maintained reducing service calls and issues | • No routine maintenance; every call becomes a “crisis” since unattended small issues snowball into big problems that need to be fixed now! |
• Daily support included via Help Desk | • Customers are charged on a per-call basis |
• Main Focus: keep client systems up and running with little or no downtime; emphasis is on service | • Main Focus: generate revenue through service calls (onsite or remote); billed by the call |
• Close goal alignment: when client systems are down, MSP is less profitable | • Goals are not aligned: break-fix firms only make money when the client has problems |
Break-fix is the main reason why many small-to-medium size businesses have so many computer problems. Small issues are not addressed until they become big problems, causing excessive and needless downtime.