"Why would my business need Managed IT Services?"
Like most business owners today, you know that your company relies on information technology. Think what would happen to your business if your employees could not access e-mail or locate customer data, for a day, a week or maybe longer. When something breaks, you or your business manager may call a repair person to fix. In this industry that is called a "break/fix" solution. Fees for break/fix service companies are based on time in one of these two variations: (1) time and materials based on an hourly rate schedule and the amount of materials used to provide the fix (2) a deduction from pre-paid "blocks of time" (a retainer approach) giving you a balance from which you may deduct the next 'fix'. Hummert Commerce is an MSP and does not charge for time.

"What is an MSP - Managed Service Provider?"
An MSP, or managed IT service provider, delivers information technology services to clients both proactively and when the client needs them. The flat monthly fee charged for IT management, provides the client with a predictable support cost. Hummert's managed IT service plans come in two flavors: Managed IT Care with a flat Incident charge and Total IT Care for unlimited support services. Either plan allows you, the business owner, or CFO/Controller, to budget each month for your IT support costs. This takes the guess work out of how much that next 'break/fix' invoice is going to run you when you get it in the mail.

"Why would I want to increase my costs with your IT support plan?"
In almost all cases of companies with 5 or more employees, a network does not run by itself, and you, or someone in your organization may be spending more on IT support and management than you may realize. Deploying workstations, securing company data, patching machines and updating content filters are all common network tasks that take time and cost money. These are the tru costs of supporting the information technology network for your business that you and your employees need everyday.

Re-allocating non revenue producing resources to other areas of your business, while outsourcing IT support to a managed service provider like Hummert Commerce, can help bring expenses into alignment while increasing your bottom line. In addition, a “value-added” managed IT service provider will offer ongoing suggestions as to how information technology can be leveraged to achieve your business objectives. The value of this service can often pay for the actual annual support cost.

"What exactly would a Hummert IT Care Plan do for me anyway?"
There are costs to owning and managing a company’s IT network. Our objective is to help you achieve a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) of managing and supporting your computer network by providing everyday maintenance tasks and ongoing support services. These include:

• Operating System Patch Management for your workstations and servers
• Anti-Virus / SpyWare Daily Definitions for your workstations and servers
• Disk Defragmentation / Temporary Internet/System File Removal (workstation and servers)
• File Backup & Bare Metal Image Restoration Capabilities at the workstation and server level (assumes you have available NAS/SAN space available - if not, we can help!)
• 24x7 Monitoring and Alerting for all Servers
• Managed Router & Firewall services
• Remote Backup / Off-Site Storage Solutions (though not included in our IT Care Plans)
• Comprehensive Network Health Reporting, including when an unauthorized application was installed at the workstation level, asset reporting metrics, hardware utilization metrics for future planning, license compliance reporting and much more to help proactively manage your network
• Remote Workstation and Server Support
• Automated Ticketing System with Real-Time Status Notification & Reporting
• Depth of IT Support Staff available from Hummert for comprehensive support
• A Single Point of Contact for all of your IT Support Requirements