We’ve written before about why a managed service provider (MSP) makes sense when it comes to the security of your company’s data and intellectual property, but the truth is that a business only has data worth taking if they can remain productive and innovative on their technological foundations. Software bugs or crashing servers might help keep a hacker at bay, but they’re also going to keep employees from doing their best and most efficient work. The truth is that there’s no overstating the importance of technical support, particularly in today’s tech-heavy workplace.

As we mentioned in the data security blog, there are three general pathways for finding technical support, depending on your solutions: if you have an on-premises solution, you’ll either have to find answers yourself, or perhaps you’re paying a monthly subscription fee to maintain a certain degree of support, or maybe you’re paying to keep one or more people on staff to perform those duties as needed. None of them are ideal, because they’re either too expensive or they’re too difficult to navigate—no key stakeholder in a business process has the time to scour obscure support forums in search of a half-truth and a barely-working solution.

As an MSP, Business Intelligence 101 helps bridge the gap between a company and the cloud, and various solutions offered by Google, Microsoft, and NetSuite. There’s nothing stopping a business from skirting us and going straight to the source, for example, if they want to begin hosting their data on Google Drive and using Google’s collaborative tools. And they might be successful, and find that this beginner-level version of the cloud works for them.

But what happens if they run into a problem with Google Sheets that they can’t figure out? Or, what if Office 365’s cloud storage seems to be randomly deleting files? Or, what if a particular NetSuite function isn’t making sense?

The truth is that these large cloud providers have millions of customers, and many more customer service requests. Most solutions, if they’re solutions at all, can be discovered on various support forums, and only after the user is forced to sort through thousands of threads. Even “approved solutions” don’t work, or don’t offer exactly what the customer needs. For all the incredible work these companies do in developing collaborative cloud tools, they’re simply overwhelmed with issues—expect boilerplate solutions that might work, not individual attention that will work.

As an MSP, Bi101 aims for a different relationship with our customers through our Business in a Box and Modelworks offerings. You get all the same tools that you’ll find by signing up for a Google Apps account, for example, or a Microsoft 365 subscription, but you’ll also have a guarantee: You’ll have a dedicated technical support staff that you can call, plus a ticketing system that you can use to deliver concerns 24/7. You’ll have the reassurance that a real person is on the other end of your concern, looking for exactly the solution that you need to get back to work.

We like to say that we “drink our own champagne,” in that we use all of the software that we offer to our customers. Every day we’re working in the trenches of Google Drive and Office 365—simply put, we understand how these tools operate better than most. With these thousands of hours of experience, our support teams have developed workarounds for countless common concerns, and are fully prepared to help create custom solutions for the exceptional ones.

No one wants to find themselves in a situation where their employees can’t be productive because their technology isn’t behaving—aside from other benefits of collaborating with an MSP, our team is here for you, whenever you might need us, and no matter what’s causing you trouble. In the cloud world, there’s simply no replacing that sense of security.