Technical Agility Favors the Small: How MSPs Help SMBs Adapt
You’re renovating your home, ready for a weekend of sweat and elbow grease. There’s only one problem: you forgot to buy a toolkit.
Now you’re running back and forth from the hardware store, buying what you need the second you run into an issue. If only you’d planned better, the project would be done by now.
This mirrors how businesses often adopt new tech. They jump in without the necessary tools or systems, wasting a lot of time and money in the process.
But when technology is constantly evolving, with new tools released every year, how can a small business hope to keep up with everything?
By becoming technically agile.
What Is Technical Agility
Technical agility is your company’s ability to adapt to new technology without sacrificing quality. It means being ready for what’s coming while your customers’ needs continue to evolve.
Think of it like having a unique – and expandable – toolbox. Everything you need is in one place, set up and ready to tackle whatever the job throws at you.
Technical agility requires you to have the right systems and knowledge so you’re ready for what’s next.
Why SMBs Are Actually in a Great Position
As Chris Harris puts it over at Forbes, this kind of technical agility allows smaller organizations to “respond more quickly to challenges, seize opportunities in real time and adapt without delay.”
Here’s how technical agility helps small businesses succeed:
Deploy Tools Faster
If a new tool hits the market, a small, agile business can adopt it far more easily than its larger enterprise counterparts. While the big guys may take months to roll out collaboration tools like Slack across departments, smaller companies with smaller teams can start using them in days, demonstrating their technical agility.
Test New Ideas
A small business can test new ideas without being bogged down by long approval processes. This is exactly how Airbnb started, running experiment after experiment to see what stuck. Now the company runs over 700+ experiments per week.
Prepare for the Future
Whether it’s a new AI tool or an evolving compliance framework, building your business around technical agility means always being ready for what’s coming. Gartner has consistently reported that those willing to adapt are three times more likely to grow compared to their competitors.
You and the Customer
Being smaller means having more direct access to your customers. Product reviews, social media, and feedback give you better insight into what your employees want, and your size allows for deeper personalization and interaction.
But these examples don’t come without work. Technical agility is great when properly built for, but just because small businesses have an advantage doesn’t make it a cake walk.
Major Challenges
Like starting a project without a toolkit, there are plenty of obstacles that can stop SMBs from adopting new technology.
Team Resistance
No matter how ready you are to try out a new tool, you’ll need to convince your team – a team that’s probably been doing things the same way for quite a while now. Without a proper rollout, a sudden change could cause a riot in the break room. 70% of business transformations fail, no thanks to employee resistance.
Outdated Systems & Technical Debt
62% of organizations still rely on outdated technology not designed for modern IT demands (or technical agility). Getting your business ready means taking a hard look at your old systems and investing in necessary upgrades.
IT Talent Shortage
After all that’s said and done, you’re going to need someone to actually do the behind-the-scenes work needed for technical agility. But industry research consistently indicates a lack of available IT talent. SMBs may struggle to find the right IT staff due to constrained hiring capabilities and competition from larger enterprises.
The MSP Solution
Unfortunately, hiring all that IT staff isn’t realistic. Even if you found the right talent, you’d have to fit that talent into your budget.
Managed service providers (MSPs) are designed to solve both of these issues.
An MSP is basically a plug-and-play IT department. When you partner with an MSP, it’s like materializing an entire IT team without having to spend a minute combing through resumes or a penny on training.
At The 20 MSP, each client is supported by a dedicated IT team or “pod” who get to know your company, employees, and preferred ways of working – just like an in-house IT department would!
With a predictable, flat-rate fee, you get consistent support without having to pay for time off, health insurance, sick days, or staffing gaps.
But how do MSPs actually help SMBs reach technical agility? In a whole bunch of awesome ways.
MSPs and Technical Agility
By its nature, MSPs are built for technical agility. It’s only natural that they help other businesses reach similar levels of flexibility.
That could take many forms. Maybe it’s a centralized Office 365 platform where your MSP can add and remove Microsoft licenses as needed. Maybe your MSP creates a secure, isolated network for you to test out new tools. The sky’s the limit.
Think of it this way: an MSP builds the framework to access the tech you want, need, or are just curious about.
MSPs don’t just wait around for you, either. A good MSP proactively brings recommendations based on your business. That could be a better data storage option, an update to current accounting software, or even a new AI tool that automates your internal emails.
The important thing is that you’re not the one finding these solutions alone, but with the help of a partner.
Get Ready and Stay Ready
Small businesses are in a great position. But only if you take advantage of it. If not, you could miss out on some serious opportunities.
At the 20 MSP, we make sure our clients don’t fall behind. For one predictable, flat-rate fee, we’ll help you build towards your goals – whether that’s the cloud, AI, cybersecurity, or something you haven’t even considered yet.
You focus on your business, and we’ll make sure your technology is prepared.
If you’re ready to get ready and stay ready, let’s talk.
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About The 20 MSP
As a leading provider of managed IT services, The 20 MSP serves thousands of businesses nationwide, including single and multi-location organizations, delivering white-glove service, secure and streamlined IT infrastructure, and 24/7/365 support. We believe in building lasting relationships with clients founded on trust, communication, and the delivery of high-value services for a fair and predictable price. Our clients’ success is our success, and we are committed to helping each and every organization we serve leverage technology to secure a competitive advantage and achieve new growth.
