Today’s hybrid workforce, which sees business users splitting their time between working remotely and at an office, means an organization’s IT infrastructure is firmly under the spotlight.
Systems, applications, and networks need to be performing at their best at all times; anything less and your business users’ productivity stands to suffer. This reality places more demand on both an organization’s infrastructure and its IT staff.
At a time when consistent, high performance is of the essence, more and more organizations are recognizing the benefits of managed IT services for their infrastructure support needs.
Managed IT services can provide robust support, ensuring that all systems are running smoothly and efficiently, which in turn enhances productivity and reduces the burden on internal IT staff.
What Are Managed Services?
IT Managed Support Services is the term used when an external partner takes over the responsibility of monitoring and managing an organization’s IT estate. Usually provided remotely (although sometimes with an on-site presence), this holistic approach to IT support provides an organization with many benefits.
While all Managed Support Services differ, most encompass monitoring and management of the following:
- Servers
- Networks
- Storage
- Business applications
- Communications
- Mobility (smartphones, laptops & tablets)
- IT Help Desk services
- Reporting and analytics services
- Digital transformation services
- Even meeting room booking and facilities management solutions
Benefits of Managed IT Services
By outsourcing the management of their IT estate to an external enterprise IT managed services provider, organizations can realize a number of managed IT services benefits, including:
1. Predictable OPEX Cost Model
With enterprise IT Managed Services, organizations can better predict and manage their IT costs. That’s because such agreements have a single, fixed set of operating expenses (OPEX), making budgeting more predictable.
2. Access To Premium Tools With Low/Zero TCO
To fully monitor and manage their IT estates across the board, organizations need to utilize the latest solutions. But it can be a struggle justifying the high costs associated with acquiring them. With an enterprise IT managed services agreement, organizations have access to top-of-the-line technology without having to pay for it upfront. In addition, they typically enjoy lower total cost of ownership (TCO) as compared to owning and managing these tools in-house.
3. Proactive Monitoring & Support
With managed services, an organization’s IT infrastructure is constantly being monitored for issues. If a problem does arise, the issue can often be resolved quickly and efficiently before it impacts users or business operations. This proactive approach to IT maintenance and support can help prevent downtime, keeping an organization’s users as productive as possible.
4. A Single Point Of Contact
With an enterprise IT managed services agreement, organizations have a single point of contact for all their IT needs. This can save time and frustration, especially when compared to the break/fix model where businesses need to keep track of multiple vendors. In addition, having a single point of contact often leads to better communication and coordination between an organization and its IT vendor.
5. Expertise & Experience
When it comes to managing an organization’s IT infrastructure, having the right expertise and experience is essential. With a managed services agreement, organizations have access to a team of experts that is dedicated to maintaining their systems and keeping them running smoothly. Furthermore, these experts also keep their fingers on the pulse when it comes to innovations and advancements, and keep their skills honed by undergoing training and achieving the latest accreditations.
Managed IT Services In Today’s Workplace
The so-called “new normal”, which involves business users following a hybrid working model, presents new challenges for enterprise leaders. As IT estates become more fragmented and networks are stretched by all manner of new applications and digital transformation services, ensuring consistent, reliable performance is absolutely crucial.
Just because they are working remotely, your business users shouldn’t need to accept a drop in performance, or worse still witness their day-to-day applications become unavailable. Should this occur, not only will their faith in your organization’s IT offerings become undermined, they could even turn to using unapproved solutions to achieve what they need.
Meanwhile, the ongoing skills shortage means that attracting and retaining the best IT talent is becoming more difficult for organizations. This inevitably means having to pay significantly higher salaries and offering competitive employee benefits just to compete in the talent marketplace.
With so much riding on ensuring that their IT estates are consistently performing, the decision to partner with a Managed Support Services provider has become an obvious one for modern organizations to make.
Managed Services for the Modern Worker and Modern Workplace
Yorktel’s Managed Services bring four decades of designing, deploying, managing, and supporting the forefront of enterprise communication, collaboration, productivity and security solutions.
Choosing A Partner For Managed IT Services
It goes without saying that choosing the right Managed Services partner is paramount in ensuring your organization reaps the full benefits of IT service management.
Here are some questions to ask when looking for an IT Managed Services partner:
- What certifications and partnerships with vendors and OEMs do you hold?
- Can you provide 24x7x365 support?
- What SLAs and response times can we expect?
- Are your services one-size-fits-all or tailored to our needs?
- What monitoring tools do you use?
- Do you have a dedicated Network Operations Center (NOC)?
- How will you work with our own internal IT team(s)?
- What kind of reporting can you provide?
- Can you help us with future IT road mapping?
- Do you already support organizations like ours?
Ready to Experience the Benefits of Managed IT Services?
The hybrid workplace and its associated challenges place more demand than ever on an organization’s IT estate and support teams. With a broadening mix of applications, platforms, devices, and interoperability challenges, IT support considerations have never been greater. Internal IT departments can lose pace and become overwhelmed, underlining the advantages of managed IT services.
Discover how our IT Managed services can benefit your organization. Contact Us and talk to one of our Managed Services specialists to find out more.