CIOs have some big plans for 2014 including BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) management, Cloud services, Data Base Management, Enterprise Application Support and Big Data. What they don’t have are bigger budgets.
IT departments are increasingly being asked to do more with less money and fewer people, driving IT departments to look outside for skills and cost efficiencies through managed services.
2014 is shaping up to be a big year for Managed Services. As companies look to reduce their costs and get more productivity from fewer people, Managed Service providers offer an attractive alternative through hosted services and, in some cases, very deep benches of IT expertise that can be leveraged on an as-needed basis. Think of it as additive to your service model and coverage.
The challenge for CIOs is how to innovate while avoiding the inundate aspect of taking on new projects. Most IT departments are already taxed with maintaining legacy systems for existing users. Shifting IT resources to a new project can leave these users feeling stranded and even angry when it involves must-have services such as email and access to critical business applications.
With Managed Services, CIOs can shift these day-to-day responsibilities to a trusted partner that, in many cases, can provide better levels of service and reliability at a low cost. This frees up internal IT resources—the people that were hired to give your business a competitive advantage in the first place—to support the business that drives innovation and new revenue.
If you’re considering a Managed Services partner in the new year, here are some questions to ask yourself before you bring in the reinforcements:
- Would taking on a new and important project impact our ability to deliver critical, day-to-day IT services?
- Do we have the skills we need in-house to handle mobile device management? Big Data? Cloud Services? Date Base Management? Enterprise Application support?
- Would shifting from unpredictable capex costs to a fixed opex model save us money and make it easier to take on new projects in the future?
- Do we have any internal applications that could be hosted more efficiently on a Cloud server without sacrificing security or performance?
A “yes” response to any of the above makes you a good candidate for Managed Services. And if you’re not considering a big IT initiative in 2014, maybe you should, because your competition probably is. The competitive advantage to be had from new technology is often greatest after the early adopters have worked out the kinks, which is where BYOD, the Cloud and Big Data are at this stage.
The message of managed services is this: You don’t have to do it alone and it probably doesn’t make sense for you to do everything. Bringing in a managed services partner like AdvizeX allows your IT department to become more flexible without stretching your budget, and to get more of the stuff that really matters right. ▪