subject: Strategic & Flexible It Managed Services: Time To Be Ahead Of The Game [print this page] Today's IT Leaders have the challenge to meet increasing business demands whilst controlling IT costs and alleviating management headaches. As technology becomes more and more complex, CIOs continuously look for providers to improve the performance of their IT Infrastructure.
So what does the CIO or IT Director need?
The need clearly, is to find a strategic partner, who can drive business growth and transformation, rather than remain a mere supplier of IT capacity. Many global organisations want more than an IT vendor. They seek a highly flexible, broadly capable partner with global reach to help them simplify, optimise and advance their technological investments.
Change in Traditional Models
Initially, managed services were by and large adopted by large enterprises but now small to medium enterprises are also opting to use them because of competitive pressures and operational concerns. Today, organisations from different verticals are very keen on using workplace management services, managed data centre and network and security support services rather than traditional outsourcing models.
The IT managed services providers need to focus on service excellence and offer bespoke services to different customers. They must expand their local delivery capabilities by having a truly global model with the required knowledge, customer-facing partners and distributors worldwide.
In the coming days, we will see a rise in the popularity of managed infrastructure services. CIOs will want to adopt and engage with a provider who has a flexible managed services model to in order to take full advantage of the convenience of using the best of breed technology and services, without losing control of IT.
A lot has changed and the market has gradually transformed from body shopping contracts or facility management services to a strategic process-oriented and flexible delivery model. The future will see a hybrid of offsite services delivery either through Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) or a combination of offsite remote management and onsite delivery.
Flexible Service Delivery Model
Through a partnership approach to their managed services program, organisations can focus on their core competencies; lower the cost of managing IT infrastructure through improved productivity and operational efficiencies with access to a dedicated team of highly qualified and talented professionals.
In this collaborative approach, both parties (organisation & IT managed services provider) share risks and responsibilities for better output. This model helps in rationalising headcount, whilst focusing on cost efficiencies within the organisations existing ways of working.
It is an investment that gives organisations the most advanced IT capabilities while allowing them to maintain as much or as little control over their IT operations and infrastructure as they wish.
IT Managed Services (IMS) consists of various service level offerings that provide proactive IT management and support. Companies can select from a range of IMS services designed to optimise their technology investment and maximise the productivity of their people and business. The IT Managed Service offerings cover the entire array of IT outsourcing services including Data Centre & Network Management, Desktop & Server Management, IMAC services, Virtualisation and cloud computing services.
Infrastructure Management Services gives organisations access to highly qualified support professionals to resolve issues related to desktop and laptop support, routers, switches, firewalls and wireless access points. Acting as a single point of contact for all IT based enquiries, the service logs all issues as incidents in a service management tool.
This model will provide effective and proven Infrastructure Management Services for organisations to reduce costs and improve on service delivery efficiencies. The other business benefits are:
Reduce total cost of ownership
Pay less for a higher quality of service
Better control and efficiencies of scale
Gain access to best of breed tools & best practices
Speedy knowledge transition and reduce dependency on single manpower
Shared service delivery platform within business units and industry
99% -100% of SLA maintenance
Peace of mind
Companies need to begin 2011, one step ahead of the game. They can do this by adopting a flexible managed service provider who can manage the peaks and troughs of their business demands to meet future IT infrastructure requirements.
Allied Worldwide's IT managed services are designed to protect clients existing investments and intellectual capital by working with multiple platforms, delivery partners and their own teams. We base our solutions on ITIL-best practices and proven methodologies.
