Managed IT services in Lyon

It is the point we stress before anything else, because it determines your freedom. Managed IT done well takes the daily work off your hands while leaving you the owner of your credentials, your data and your documentation. Done badly, it makes you dependent, and you find out on the day you want to leave.

What managed IT covers

The term sounds grand but covers something simple: handing the day-to-day running of your IT to an outside provider, for lack of time or skills in-house. For a small or medium business in Lyon, that means in practice:

• Monitoring of the machines, the server and the backups.
• Updates and routine upkeep.
• User support for everyday questions.
• Account management: creation when someone joins, deactivation when they leave.
• Tracking the hardware and anticipating replacements.
• Dealing with your other providers: operator, host, business software vendor.

That last point is often the most appreciated. Spending an hour on the phone with an operator's support desk is not your job.

What we do, and what we do not

We are a local business in Lyon, not a national services company. That has consequences you should know before choosing us.

What it brings: you always speak to the same people, who know your setup. No ticket numbers, no first-line agent making you restart the router before passing you on. And a quick on-site visit, since we are in Lyon.

What it does not bring: we do not offer round-the-clock monitoring, nor a contractual commitment to restore service within hours at night and at weekends. If your business requires that - continuous production, a critical service - you need an organization built for it, and we will say so rather than promise what we cannot deliver.

What kind of organization it suits

Managed IT starts to make sense once the IT can no longer be handled “when we get five minutes”. In practice, from five to ten machines, or earlier if there is a server, sensitive customer data, or a business that stops dead when something fails.

Below that, light follow-up is enough: see small business maintenance.

How managed IT starts

With a review, always. We inventory the machines, the software, the accounts, the backups and the remote access. That stage almost always turns up forgotten items: a former employee's access still active, a backup that stopped, a contract renewed whose purpose nobody remembers. See security audit.

We then draw up a plan for taking things in hand, in order of priority, and put the regular follow-up in place. All of it is set out in a document that belongs to you.

The real cost of unmanaged IT

It is hard to see because it is spread out. An hour lost here on a printer, two hours there on email, half a day redoing a document that was not saved, a subscription paid for a service abandoned two years ago. Nothing spectacular, but the total over a year often exceeds what follow-up would cost.

To that add the invisible cost of the owner becoming the default IT contact for want of anyone better. It is the most expensive time in the business, spent hunting for a printer driver.

Three ways to choose a provider badly

The cheapest. The price difference always turns up somewhere: in response times, in the depth of the follow-up, or in skills. Comparing two proposals on the monthly figure alone is meaningless without looking at what they cover.

The biggest. A large organization brings resources, but often at the price of a contact who keeps changing and support by tickets. For a small business, that means time lost re-explaining your setup.

The one who says yes to everything. A provider who accepts a one-hour restoration time at night without reservation, on a setup they have not seen, is promising what they will not deliver. An objection at the quote stage beats a disappointment during an incident.

La réversibilité

We document deliberately so that another provider could take over the setup without difficulty. That may look commercially counter-intuitive. It is in fact what makes a customer stay: they know they could leave.