Are you struggling to keep up with the pace of technical innovation in your industry? Do your IT development projects keep getting put on hold while you drown in a rising backlog of user requests? Is the cost of providing support running out of control and the effort involved getting out of hand?
If these are familiar-sounding challenges, then it’s probably time to outsource some of your day-to-day IT to an effective managed services provider (MSP). Managed services can reduce recurring in-house costs by 30% to 40% and, with a services partner, your IT group can expect to increase operational efficiency by 50% to 60%*. Yet there’s much more to managed services beyond just cost savings.
Improve business innovation
Staying competitive in today’s business environment depends on being agile and able to innovate. By freeing up your IT people to think strategically, you can deliver improved customer experiences and gain a competitive edge.
Operate more efficiently
You can transform your existing CapEx-heavy IT infrastructure into lightweight, OpEx-led cloud-based services. These can flex and scale with the changing requirements of your business in different locations around the world whenever you need.
Plus, you can ensure the right mix of services is delivered wherever you need it, provided by better-trained and more highly skilled people than you would easily be able to recruit. And they can be available around the clock, seven days a week, in any time-zone, speaking multiple languages, and with the right cultural knowledge to provide a much enhanced overall quality of service.
And with improved IT support and less downtime, your people can also be far more productive.
Define your service level and sit back
Moreover, outsourcing your managed services means far fewer concerns over cost, regulatory compliance and service quality. Simply define what service level you require and sit back while your MSP delivers it for a predictable monthly fee.
MSPs are able to achieve economies of scale and skill, creating centres of IT expertise, learning and knowledge-sharing that attract the very best people. And they are also able to provide better quality hardware infrastructure, as all the costs can be spread more efficiently across a much wider pool of end users.
Indeed, with the fast pace of technological advances, managed services is almost always the most cost-effective and best way of receiving your IT support services.
But what if it all goes wrong?
Of course, things don’t always go to plan. Maybe you’ve contracted for an inadequate level of service, or perhaps the service provider is struggling to meet its obligations. Indeed, in some cases, suppliers might even be unable to say whether they’re delivering what they promised.
The importance of true partnership
Establishing a strong, strategic partnership with your MSP is essential. The service level agreement (SLA) you reach should meet all the needs of your specific business, be achievable and – crucially – be demonstrable. So ask your MSP what global infrastructure and resources it possesses to deliver on its SLA, what contingency plans it has to protect against unforeseen disruption, and what processes it has in place to track and regularly communicate service performance to you.
Above all, ask it to prove its track record with testimonials from existing satisfied customers. Find out how well the MSP works in partnership with its clients’ internal IT teams, and what processes it has in place to ensure smooth hand-off.
Big enough to deliver, small enough to care
Allied Worldwide has over 25 years’ experience of providing outsourced IT support, and can offer bespoke and high-quality SLAs to companies operating anywhere in the world. We support Kodak’s 6,000+ global employees, for example, resolving 82% of service desk calls and 78% of onsite requests in the first touch. And yet, despite our reach, we also pride ourselves on offering truly personal service.
For more information on the benefits of Allied Worldwide’s comprehensive managed services solutions, please contact us.
* “Managed Services Market – Global Advancements 2013-2018”, Markets and Markets
