Some organisations look towards outsourcing to assist them in achieving their business objectives, and some prefer to retain the delivery of IT services in-house.
However, Butler Group is seeing an increasing number of organisations not only using outsourcing to complement the services they are delivering in-house, but also implementing a multi-sourced model – that is, having a number of different providers deliver various aspects of IT requirements.The Managed Services model should enable effective MSPs to maximise the efficiency and quality of their offerings, due to their narrow focus on an area that can be improved iteratively.
Along with the economies that can be derived from operating on a larger scale, Managed Services should be available at a lower cost than the customer organisation could achieve itself, thereby increasing value for the customer organisation.
However, it is not all a bed of roses, and undertaking the use of Managed Services can constitute a risk to an organisation.
This is because it can create a dependency on skills from outside the organisation, and thus the extent of this risk should be quantified.
If core, value-adding business processes and applications are outsourced to a MSP, the consequential loss of control over available resource levels (if they are not guaranteed) could result in a loss of organisational flexibility.
Key findings:
• Organisations must undertake Managed Services as part of a considered sourcing strategy.
• All sizes of organisation make use of Managed Services.
• Using Managed Services allows organisations to focus IT resource on delivering strategic benefits rather than repetitive services.
• Managed Services customers should seek to pay for actual usage, rather than maximum usage, of services.
• Commitment is required from all levels to make the Managed Services model work for the organisation.
• Customers need to spend time, effort, and money to support a Managed Services contract, through an in-house management team.
• Managed Services allow for increased business and financial flexibility, through the reduced need to commit to a long period of involvement with a single supplier.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are an important element of Managed Services and need to be controlled and maintained.
• Network, voice/data convergence, and security services are the highest Managed Services growth markets.
• Almost 40% of organisations are likely to outsource aspects of their infrastructure in the next two years.
• Service requirements are converging across technologies.