Outsourcing is sometimes thought of as a four letter word in business, but the reality is that by 2014 almost 9 out of very 10 businesses in the U.S. will have allowed certain aspects of their business to be managed by another company. Purchasing managed services will allow your small business to free up staff, access expertise in specific industries not currently existing in house, and realize significant cost savings.

Purchasing managed services is usually done with a monthly or yearly subscription, so it is convenient as well as beneficial to your operations. Here are three managed services that you should consider acquiring for your small business.

1. Small business phone systems.

A small business phone system might not seem complicated on the surface, but consider how often you and your employees need the phone system to be working. Even a brief service outage can be damaging to your business as potential customers fail to get in touch with you. Entrusting your phone system to experts can mean less crisis, and more business as usual.

2. Quality web hosting.

It is expected that the web hosting industry will grow by 26 percent over the course of the next four years. This is great news for you if you choose to contract with website hosting companies. Here too, working with professionals will mean less downtime, better results, and less stressed employees.

3. It managed service providers.

Did you know that an average of 84,000 dollars is lost for every hour of downtime? Plain and simple, your small business can not afford to struggle with IT. Contracting for tech support can go two ways. You can receive IT support for your own company, or if you provide technology to your clients, you can offer them troubleshooting support via the managed services of another company.

At the end of the day, managed services are proven to provide an incredible ROI.
Approximately 50 percent of firms that have switched to managed services realized a reduction of expenditures by 25 percent! For some firms, that return on investment is even higher. Whether you look at small business phone systems, website hosting providers, or other managed services companies, you can feel confident in knowing that the investment will ultimately pay off.