The Managed Services Landscape
In most organisations there is a clear need to focus the internal IT group on those emerging technologies that provide a gateway toward competitive advantage. Often, these are mission-critical applications required for strategic purposes; thus, their implementation must be accomplished with nimble swiftness, requiring specialised knowledge and adroit competency levels.
The most prominent characteristic of futuristic companies will be their ability to be flexible, for time to market is critical in sustaining a competitive advantage. While larger companies are more cumbersome and take longer to respond to changing markets, smaller companies often don’t have the capital or other resources to be able to respond as needed.
This new IT landscape leads to two persistent scenarios, as seen from different organisational stakeholder perspectives:
IT spending is too high; tangible returns from existing spending levels are mostly unrealised (or at least unapparent). Budget freezes or slashes and headcount restrictions are necessary to control IT costs and impose budget discipline.
and,
The IT department's resources are being taxed to the limit by demands from across the enterprise, yet further IT investment has been declared out of the question. IT cost cuts threaten the level of service IT provides to internal customers, not to mention the functioning of mission-critical operations.
Two questions emerge from these perspectives.
1. How to get more value from organisational spend in IT?
Essentially a question of efficiency.
2. How to get more from existing technology investments?
Essentially a question of effectiveness.
These problems can be resolved by leveraging various infrastructure and services through a Managed Service solution.
The key to this type of solution, and increased competitive advantage through utilisation of IT, resides in the ability to capitalise on points of leverage in order to achieve greater efficiencies, lower costs and access to resources.
A Managed Services solution capable of providing this degree of leverage must contain the following elements:
Information Technology resources
- Eliminates the need for buyer’s investment in IT because the supplier has already invested in it
Process expertise
- The supplier’s expertise and technology resources reengineer and streamline the outsourced process, making it more cost effective
- Gives buyer’s management more time to focus on core competencies
- Best practices from supplier’s experience with other clients
Economies of scale
- Enables scalability (ability to mobilize quickly for peak periods, mergers/acquisitions)
- Facilitates enterprise growth and expansion
- Networks
Access to resources not otherwise available
- Equipment
- Applications
- Capital
- People
- Lower-cost raw materials.
The second consideration is the sustainability of the leverage components. Since a Managed Service is a long-term relationship, the leverage that creates value must also be sustainable over the long term.
ITSS helps companies save money and time and increase their effectiveness by deploying solutions that deliver these benefits and more, including:
Reducing the growing complexity of systems management
The number and variety of systems deployed in IT today has created a wealth of monitoring data with little value. ITSS provides ways to process and consolidate this data into meaningful statistics - allowing insight into current deployments and improved planning for the future.
Reducing the risk of technology adoption
ITSS builds close partnerships with major technology suppliers to gain access to the latest hardware and software. You can leverage this advanced expertise to mitigate the risk of your deployment, insuring your cutting edge applications are managed by professionals trained on the latest technology.
Accelerating delivery times
Rapid changes in business goals require rapid changes for IT. Our inventory of facilities, bandwidth, and devices, coupled with automated build procedures helps you respond to your changing needs by offering quick deployment times for systems and software.
Increasing the availability of your environment
As the number and variety of systems increases, the need for process grows dramatically.
Decrease your exposure to threats
The number of threats to your systems is growing, but adding to that concern are the increasing sophistication and persistence of attacks. ITSS combines the latest security tools with trained security professionals to create an environment focused on preventing threats from affecting your systems.
Ensuring business continuity for mission-critical applications
ITSS offers a service that combines deployment of applications in multiple data centers with real-time disaster recovery, putting business continuity at a price point significantly lower than traditional solutions.
Financial Gearing
Today's companies face a huge challenge. On the one hand is the need to leverage rapid technology advances to bring in business benefits.
On the other hand, ever-tighter IT budgets and pressure to prove maximum payback fast, from any proposed technology investment.
In this environment, companies large and small are turning to financing as the most cost effective way to access the technology solutions their business needs to succeed.
ITSS would be able to offer a range of financial services providing the following benefits: