Many companies have been confronted with the concept of managed services, a model whereby a third-party contractor (managed service provider, or MSP) delivers network-based services, applications and/or equipment to businesses, says Craig Freer, Vox Telecom head of Product: Enterprise.
This can be in the form of a hosted company or an access provider that offers IT services as fully outsourced network management arrangements, such as telephony, virtual private networks or video conferencing.
Managed services are part and parcel of the commoditisation of the market and the weak economy, as well as deflation, because price has become an issue – most companies have to cut costs, and by “outsourcing” non-core services to a specialist company, they do exactly that.
By entrusting a managed service provider to handle those services, they don’t have to spend a great deal of money building the internal IP by hiring staff. They also access benefits such as security and upgrades at a lower cost through these providers.
A bank, for example, may want to spend its time building customer relationships rather than spending time developing a specialised in-house IT department, but IT is crucial to their business. The best solution for them would probably be to work with companies who specialise in managing infrastructure and technology, so that they can focus on their customers, and leave the technology in the hands of the IT gurus.
Users also have to look at managed services in the context of the greater marketplace – and cloud technology. More and more services will be outsourced to those who can offer cloud capabilities. South Africa is behind the curve, but are catching up fast.
And of course, literally anything in a business can be managed by a third party, except their concept of brand and philosophy. Most companies are talking about it and at least shipping their non-core services, like e-mails, to the cloud.
Managed services should be defined a set of modular services which can also be offered independently – all of which tie into a service level agreement (SLA). Simply put, a SLA has guaranteed service deliverables – a managed service agreement (MSA) is a SLA plus dedicated resources that will assist the client with day to day needs and requirements.
Let’s take a video conferencing product suite for example. When entering into an agreement with the video conferencing provider, a service desk will be included as par for the course. This service desk will be the primary point of contact and managed in line with the terms set out in the contract.
Users may wish to add a few other layers – such as consulting services to help improve overall performance, or a concierge service that puts a manager at their disposal every time you would like to set up a meeting room.
In other words, the managed service can be seen as a value-add wrapped around various products – outsourcing your IP to someone who can guarantee ready availability and best practise supply in a complex tech environment.
It could be as simple as running your e-mail system in-house, but using a provider that could supply the service to ensure it runs effectively, 24/7, without having to hire a staff member.
Managed services can save money and time – and boost business’ performance by providing users with access to expertise. Best of all, this allows users to do what they do best – whether it’s customer service, employee management or sales – whilst someone else takes care of the tech headache.
