So what have you done this year to improve your IT service delivery to meet business needs? Do you still find yourself asking the following questions:

“How can we better serve our users?”

“How can we demonstrate the value we (in IT) deliver?”

“How do we evolve into an IT organization that’s fit for the next five years to address the changing business needs and expectations in the marketplace?”

“How do we improve IT support based on actual business needs?”

Managed IT Support

Managed IT support, also known as managed services, can offer a nimble solution for your organization.  With managed services, your business gets 24/7 remote monitoring of your systems and a team of technical support on call should things get out of control.

If you’re like most executives, buying technology often involves elements of excitement, hope, uncertainty, frustration and everything in between. Requirements must be identified, competing needs weighed, capabilities evaluated, ROI assessed and a host of other factors considered. So how do you justify outsourcing IT Support in the current economy?

The emergence of the modern IT leader

We now see modern IT leaders managing their business with the same data-driven accuracy, financial transparency, and process discipline as their corporate peers in sales, manufacturing, marketing, human resources, and finance.

Similar to their peers, modern IT leaders rely on services and solutions to manage their portfolio of services, applications, infrastructure, and ...end-user satisfaction. They pride themselves in delivering quality IT services to the business on time, on budget, and at affordable price points. Modern IT leaders use facts to collaborate on the trade-offs needed to maximize business value. IT Support solutions that remove the hassle and risk helps them attain control of their critical IT systems. Cost-only conversations become a thing of the past. 

What are your biggest challenges? 

Complexity: Do you have a wide variety of servers, storage, virtualization, network, security and applications that need to me administered, managed and maintained?
Limited resources: Do you have limited staff managing the infrastructure and applications that runs the business? Are you mostly reactive vs. proactive?
Lack of resources for strategic work: Is your IT team so busy that they cannot make time to evaluate new features or functionality that can help the business grow?

Top Factors Driving Managed Services Adoption

- Improve Security
- Use a proactive approach to solve IT problems
- Increase your uptime
- Gain access to newer technologies
- Save costs over in-house IT support
- Cloud solutions adoption
- Offer remote office IT
- Peace of mind

Risks associated with deficient IT support

- More expensive downtime
- Loss in productivity
- Increased operating costs
- Increased data and security risks
- Increased risk of disaster
- Technology fragmentation

Managed Services Cost models

Pay-as-you-go isn’t the only pricing model for managed services, but pricing, in general, is typically the thing that makes the model attractive. Many organizations have been looking to migrate from a capex model of IT purchasing and management to an opex model that fuels more predictability in costs and greater insights for accurate budgeting and forecasting. Other types of pricing include a flat monthly fee based on the size and scope of your IT network, or monthly pricing by number of users or devices being managed.

At the start of a mandate, we recommend an upfront assessment to get a clear picture of needs and evaluate accurate costs based on requirements and scalability needs.

Still unsure? Here are the top five benefits of managed IT support:

It’s a predictable, monthly cost: No more unplanned repair bills.  You pay for outcomes, such as smoothly functioning IT system, rather than labor costs and time spent on repairs.
It’s scalable: based on business demand, freeing you from staffing, bandwidth, power and space constraints.
It manages the evolving complexities of technology: Managed IT provides you with a team of experts in multiple knowledge areas, enabling you to access the latest IT solutions at a cost you can afford.
24×7 systems monitoring:  Managed service providers will watch for alerts and make fixes remotely, often before a problem arises.  This reduces your risk, and gives you a more reliable IT infrastructure.

At Sentia, we are proud of being considered trusted partners by our customers by helping them be successful and grow. We can help you map out a business plan with the IT support that is right for your needs and your budget.

For more information and resources:
Visit our managed services briefing centre at: Sentia-ManagedServices.com
Visit our managed support page on our website here.

Related Blogs:
Feel free to look through our archives and previous blogs on Managed Services where we discuss what to look for in a managed services partner. Call me or email me to discuss your challenges and let me help you manage IT like a true business function.

Chris Charette, Vice President, Services
1-866-610-8489