Managed IT for SMEs and enterprise
Server management, workplace management, network management and cloud management under one contract, with 24/7 monitoring, security that runs as standard and a fixed point of contact in the Benelux.
Management that carries on when no one is watching
Most IT problems in mid-sized organisations are not caused by poor technology, but by a lack of continuity. A small internal team keeps everything running, puts out fires and never gets round to maintenance, documentation or a roadmap. Managed IT solves that by making management a process instead of a person.
- One fixed point of contactYou call or email someone who knows your environment, instead of explaining your situation all over again to a stranger every time.
- Agreements put in writingWhat we take on, when we do it and who gets called during an incident: it is on paper before we start.
- Predictable monthly costsYou pay a fixed amount per month instead of separate hours afterwards, so you know in advance where you stand.
- Weekly reportingYou can see exactly what happened, what was resolved and which points are still open. Every month we go through that with the person responsible for your IT.
- Your team stays in controlYou set the direction and the priorities yourself; we supply the execution and the people.
- With or without your own IT departmentIf you have no internal IT, we are your IT department. If you do have an IT manager, we take over the repetitive work so there is room for projects.
Managed IT for SMEs
In a smaller business, IT management is usually somebody’s second job. The finance manager handles the licences, a colleague with a knack for it fixes the printer, and the supplier from five years ago still answers the phone, but no longer knows what has been added since. That works until the day it does not.
Outsourcing does not mean we drop a package over your environment. We start with an inventory of what is there, who can reach what, and which three things carry the most risk right now. Then we take over management at a pace that fits, rather than all of it in the same month.
- No IT department of your own needed Proactive IT management: monitoring, updates, licences and the service desk run with us, with one point of contact and one report.
- Your existing supplier can stay If something works, we do not replace it for the sake of replacing it. We take over what has come loose.
- Growth without starting over The same setup carries thirty workstations and three hundred, so a move or an acquisition does not become a fresh project.
- One invoice instead of seven Management, licences and support in a single agreement, so at year end you know where the money went.
Managed IT for enterprise organisations
In larger organisations the question is rarely whether management exists. It is why four sites have four different ways of working, why a change in Rotterdam only lands in Antwerp three weeks later, and who is accountable the moment one supplier points at another.
We come in as an addition. If you have your own IT department, we take over the layers they cannot sustain: the night, the weekend, the routine work that pulls scarce people away from what they are actually there for. If a ticketing system is already running, we work inside it and not beside it.
- Multiple sites, one way of working The same agreements, reporting and escalation at every location, across borders too.
- Alongside your own department We top up the hours and roles you cannot cover rather than replacing what you have built.
- Inside your ticketing system Where an ITSM setup already exists, we deliver within it and keep your process leading.
- Demonstrable rather than plausible Reporting an auditor accepts, with governance around it when several suppliers are involved.
Fully managed, co-managed, or ad-hoc
These are three different agreements, not three names for the same thing. Which one fits depends on whether you have IT staff of your own and how much of the routine work you want to keep.
Fully managed
We run the whole environment: monitoring, patching, the service desk and the roadmap. Fits organisations with no IT department of their own, or one person doing it as a second job alongside another role.
Co-managed
Your IT team keeps the parts they want, often strategy and applications, and we take on what has to run around the clock: monitoring, patching and the service desk overnight and at weekends. We agree in writing who owns what, so two people are never working on the same server.
Ad-hoc support
No ongoing agreement, help when something breaks. Cheaper per incident, but nobody is watching in between, so a problem is caught later and costs more to fix by the time it surfaces. We mention it because it is the real alternative most organisations are weighing this against, not because we sell it as managed IT.
From handover to routine in four steps
A realistic transition takes four to six weeks. Not because the technology takes that long, but because we first want to understand your business rhythm, your exceptions and your escalation paths.
Inventory
We map out equipment, licences, access paths and existing contracts. In this phase we change nothing yet. We listen and document.
Implementation
Monitoring and workplace management are rolled out, the patching policy is put in writing and we agree how and when things are escalated during an incident.
Ongoing management
Daily monitoring, weekly reporting and a monthly review with the person responsible for your IT, covering open points and usage.
Roadmap
Every quarter we update the multi-year plan based on what we see in practice. A living document, not an annual plan that disappears into a drawer.
What happens to your current supplier
This is usually the real question behind "how long does it take", so we answer it directly. Nothing moves in week one: we document your environment first and change nothing while we do. Access is handed over on an agreed date, not gradually as we happen to get to it, so there is one clear moment where responsibility changes rather than a grey area where it is unclear who is on call. If your current supplier is under notice, we plan our start after that period runs out wherever possible, so you are never paying two parties for the same cover. Where a hard cut-over is not possible, we say so before we start, not once the invoice arrives.
Six components, one contract
You choose the components you need. They sit in the same agreement, with the same SLA and the same point of contact. No separate suppliers pointing at each other when something goes wrong.
Infrastructure management
Servers, network, storage and cloud environments are monitored day and night, so an incident is picked up before your organisation notices it. We work with the technology you already use: Microsoft 365, Azure, AWS and VMware.
Security and patch management
Monitoring of your workplaces and servers for suspicious behaviour, with patches and changes that go ahead at agreed moments instead of whenever it happens to suit. Vulnerabilities that cannot be patched straight away are tracked until they are covered.
Service desk and workplace
First-line and second-line support in Dutch and English. We manage towards tickets that are resolved first time, not towards the number of tickets passed on. Renting workplaces instead of buying them is also possible, including maintenance and replacement.
Software and applications
Rollout, updates and optimisation of your business applications, including chasing your software suppliers on your behalf when something falters.
Backup and recovery
We check daily whether your backups can genuinely be restored and we rehearse the recovery. That way you know in advance how long you will be without your systems, instead of finding out afterwards.
Advice and roadmap
Alongside the monthly review we look ahead every quarter: capacity, migration choices, licences and the progress on your compliance obligations. That way you know which decisions are coming before a contract or a device runs out.
What sits inside the contract, and what does not
Vague scope is where most managed IT disputes start. Ours is written down before we start, not interpreted afterwards.
Included
- 24/7 monitoring of servers, network and workplaces.
- Patch and update management on an agreed schedule.
- Service desk for your staff, first and second line.
- Backup checks and a tested recovery plan.
- Quarterly roadmap review with the person responsible for your IT.
Not included
- Projects such as office moves or building a new environment.
- Hardware that you buy.
- Work caused by someone else breaking something, which we agree and quote separately before we start rather than adding to the invoice afterwards.
| Severity | What falls under it | Response time | Resolution target |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 – Critical | A full outage: nobody can work, your network or a core system is down, or an active security incident is underway. | 15–30 minutes, 24/7 | 4 hours, or a working workaround |
| P2 – High | A single server or application is down, or something affects several people at once without stopping the whole organisation. | 1–2 hours, during office hours | 8 hours |
| P3 – Normal | An individual request: one workstation, one mailbox, a question that doesn't stop anyone else from working. | 4 business hours | Same or next business day |
| P4 – Low | Scheduled work, a minor request, or something that can wait for the next planned moment. | Next business day | Within a week |
A response time and a resolution time are two different promises. The response time is how fast someone gets back to you and starts working the problem; the clock starts when a person at our service desk picks it up, not when an automated ticket confirmation goes out. The resolution target is how long it takes to actually fix it, or at least get you a working workaround. This applies the same way whether you are in the Netherlands, Belgium, or elsewhere, and the same way for SME and enterprise clients – where you sit relative to the nearest engineer only affects anything that needs a physical site visit.
Remote monitoring, hands in the server cabinet
We do most management work remotely, but part of your environment simply sits in a rack at the office, in the shop or in the distribution centre. A monitoring alert sees that a switch has dropped out; someone still has to go there. That is why our engineers come by for the work that cannot be done from behind a screen.
- Rack and cabling mapped outEvery switch, port and patch cable gets a label and goes into your documentation, so an incident does not begin with working out which cable runs where.
- Hardware you knowWe keep track of which equipment is going out of support or is approaching its capacity limit, and we plan replacement in consultation instead of after a failure.
- Work outside your peak hoursWe schedule work on cabling or network equipment at an agreed moment. You know in advance what will happen and who is coming.
- What we see on site comes backFindings from the server room land in your reporting and in the roadmap, so that isolated observations do not remain isolated observations.
- Kiwa NEN 4400-1 certifiedStaff and administration demonstrably in order, including when we deploy people at your location.
A good fit with managed IT
Managed IT is often combined with one of these services, depending on where the greatest pressure sits in your organisation.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most, answered briefly.
What exactly does managed IT cover?
Six parts under one contract: 24/7 monitoring, security, the service desk, management of workplaces and servers, updates and patches, and a roadmap setting out what is due when. You have one point of contact for your whole IT environment instead of a supplier per component.
Do we have to hand everything over at once?
No. The handover runs in four steps from inventory to routine, and you can hold parts back. Many clients start with monitoring and the service desk and bring the rest across later, once it is clear how the working relationship runs.
Will somebody still come out to us?
Yes. Monitoring happens remotely, but anything that needs hands we do on site, with our own people in the Netherlands and Belgium. We do not subcontract on-site work, so you never have to explain your environment to a company you have not met.
What if we want to end the contract?
Then we hand over. Passwords, documentation, licences and the setup we built are yours and they come with you. We have taken clients on from parties that made that difficult; that is exactly why we do it differently.
Is outsourcing IT management for SMEs, or only for large organisations?
For SMEs in particular. An organisation supporting a hundred colleagues with two internal administrators loses those two to incidents and never gets round to the projects. Outsourcing then changes less about who does the work than about what your own people get to. At larger organisations it is more often part of the management alongside an in-house team, and then we agree where the line runs.
What falls outside the contract?
Anything that is not management: projects, office moves, building a new environment, and hardware you buy. Those sit separately because they have a start and an end, and management does not. Work created by someone else breaking something (a supplier changing a setting without telling anyone, say) also falls outside, but we tell you before we start rather than putting it on the invoice afterwards.
What is the notice period?
We agree it up front and it sits in the contract, not in the small print underneath. More important than the period is what leaves with you: passwords, documentation, licences and the setup we built are yours. We have taken over environments from parties who made that difficult, and that is exactly why ours is on paper.
We have our own IT person. Can they stay?
Yes, and it often works better than handing everything over. Your IT person knows the people and the business processes; we take on the work that has to run 24 hours a day and the knowledge you cannot put in one person. We agree who owns what and write it down, so two people are never working on the same server and nobody assumes the other one has it.
What is the difference between IT outsourcing and managed services?
IT outsourcing is the broad term: work that used to sit in-house moves to an external party. Managed services is the form it takes here: a managed service provider (MSP) takes over the management continuously, for a fixed monthly amount and with agreed response times. The difference is not in what you hand over but in how it is agreed: continuous management with measurable commitments instead of loose projects or hired hours.
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Our own certifications
ITproposal is certified for ISO 9001 (quality), ISO/IEC 27001 (information security), ISO 14001 (environment) and Kiwa NEN 4400-1 (labour hire and secondment). That says something about how we work and how we have our own processes assessed; it is not a certification you inherit from us.
Curious what we would take over?
In a thirty-minute conversation we go through your current IT landscape and tell you honestly whether managed IT suits your situation.
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