MSP Comparison:
The Best MSP For Financial Services Firms In New York
Finding a quality MSP (managed service provider) is difficult for any business. The right MSP can make your business more efficient by abstracting away IT operations complexity. The wrong MSP can overcomplicate day-to-day operations and waste time and money.
In the financial services sector, data security challenges and regulations such as SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act complicate things even further. This means that financial services firms in need of an MSP need to narrow their search to find a provider that not only delivers quality service but also specializes in the financial sector.
For New York-based businesses, the good news is there is no shortage of MSPs. The bad news is, with all the marketing fluff out there, separating hype from reality is a challenge. To help you find the right MSP, we’ve evaluated over fifteen MSPs and narrowed the list down to a top 3. Here, we’ll explain a bit more about what an MSP is, describe how we evaluated the MSPs, and compare the top 3 head-to-head to find the best MSP for financial services firms in New York.
Defining MSP:
What is a managed service provider?
An MSP is a business that manages and maintains IT hardware and software for other firms.
That basic definition of an MSP is simple. Of course,”IT” covers a wide range of subcategories these days, and MSPs may specialize in specific niches. For example, while some MSPs effectively “do it all” other MSPs may specialize in Cisco networking products or Microsoft cloud products like Azure and Office 365.
Similarly, how much support and what service-level a given MSP offers can vary widely. In some cases, an MSP may help with installation, monitoring, and provisioning, but leave network planning and issue remediation (i.e. fixing whatever is broken) to the client. MSPs on the other end of the spectrum may offer full support from planning to sourcing to provisioning to monitoring to issue remediation with on-site service and an SLA (service level agreement) around response times.
Why should financial services firms use an MSP?
MSPs handle the complexities of day-to-day IT, allowing you to focus on your core competencies.
Most financial firms specialize in and make their profits from financial products and services. That means that if you’re in the financial services space, your core competency is probably not IT. While IT is important, it is a means to an end. You need servers, switches, and routers so you can operate your business, but you don’t add much to your value chain by mastering those technologies in-house.
Even if you could build a fully-staffed IT team from the ground up, it’s often not the most efficient use of resources. If you can outsource your IT management to a trusted 3rd party for a reasonable rate, you can keep internal recruiting, training, and energy on the activities that directly provide value to your customers.
Of course, the decision to outsource to a 3rd party, what aspects of your infrastructure should be outsourced, and what MSP is a good fit for you will vary depending on several criteria. Which leads us too…
What to look for in an MSP & our evaluation criteria
Here are the key factors we considered when picking the best financial services-focused MSP in New York.
Data loss is costly. So is a productivity application or customer-facing service going down. This means a robust, fast, and tested backup and recovery plan can mitigate the damage caused by unexpected data loss or downtime. Just how important is a quality DR plan? IBM’s 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report found that companies that had an incident response team and well-tested incident response plan saved $1.2 million (Source PDF: https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/ZBZLY7KL).
The Top 3 Managed Service Providers for Financial Services Firms in New York
The top 3 MSPs servicing financial services businesses in the New York area are: Imagis, Xperteks, and Brainlink International, Inc.
1. Company overview
2. Financial industry expertise
Rating:
Industry Expertise:
Imagis focuses on the professional services (of which financial services are a subset), healthcare, and non-profit industries. As a result, they are well-versed in the challenges of compliance and data security that financial firms face.
Rating:
Industry Expertise:
Xperteks has a strong focus on the financial sector in addition to the fashion, advertising, and media sectors.
Rating:
Industry Expertise:
Brainlink focuses on financial and construction / contractor clients. In the financial space, they hone in on private equity firms, wealth management firms, and family offices.
3. Data security
Rating:
- 24x7x365 SOC (security operations center)
- Security awareness training for users
- Security audits
- Dark web monitoring
- Strategic consultations for compliance-related issues
- HIPAA and NIST-CSF risk assessments
Rating:
- 24x7x365 SOC
- Dark web monitoring
- Cybersecurity-As-A-Service
Rating:
- Managed firewall
- Endpoint protection
- WISP (Practical Written Information Security Policy) development
- Security awareness training for users
4. Backup & DR
Rating:
- Backup and DR (BDR) services
- Cloud backups
- BDR Virtualization to mitigate loss caused by hardware failure
- Critical data can be recovered in minutes
Rating:
- Backup and DR (BDR) services
- Cloud backups
- Backus as frequently as 15 minutes
Rating:
- Backup and DR (BDR) services
- Cloud backups
-
Boasts a world record with Veeam and Azure restore speeds
(Source: https://www.brainlink.com/veeam-world-records/)
5. Service level
Rating:
- 24x7x365 helpdesk
- Average response time of 10 minutes
- vCIO services
- Support for internal IT departments
- Phone, chat, online portal, email, and on-premises support nationwide including New York.
- Dedicated Client Success Agents, Project Managers, Service Managers, and Support Technician
- Training workshops
- Technology procurement and budget planning
- 24x7x365 NOC (network operations center)
Rating:
- 24x7x365 helpdesk
- Under 1 hour for New York City onsite support
- Phone, email, on-premises, and online portal support
- 24x7x365 NOC
- Technology procurement and budget planning
Rating:
- 24x7x365 helpdesk
- 24x7x365 NOC
- vCTO (virtual CTO)
- Phone, email, and online portal support
6. Range of technologies supported / Technology partners
Rating:
- Azure
- Office 365
- Teams
- Citrix Hyper-V
- Windows operating systems
- Dell
- Lenovo
- Cisco
Rating:
- Structured Cabling
- Office 365
- GSuite
- Windows virtual desktop
- Windows operating systems
Rating:
- Microsoft Azure
- Microsoft Office 365
- AWS (Amazon Web Services)
- Veeam
- Cisco
- Dell
- Checkpoint
- VMware
Based on our evaluation, the best MSP for financial services firms in New York is Imagis.
In short: if you’re in the financial services sector and in the market for an MSP in the New York area, put Imagis at the top of your list.
And the Best MSP For Financial Services Firms In New York is… Imagis!
All three of the finalist performed well, but Imagis had a few key differentiators. Imagis does more than just check the boxes for things to look for in an MSP. Services such as strategic consultations for compliance and dedicated agents demonstrate a willingness to go above and beyond to tackle complex IT issues.
That extra layer of support, coupled with impressive response times and support options, enable Imagis to provide support and customer service few others can match.
