New Way to Manage Everything IT

STEVE KNUTSON

Chief Information Officer

Marco

marconet.com

Topic: Technology

Today’s economic conditions and increasingly competitive marketplace are challenging businesses of all sizes to find ways to work even leaner. That’s leading organizations to turn to technology like never before. As the use of technology becomes more extensive and complicated, businesses find that they simply cannot afford to hire an IT professional who understands and can manage all of it.

That has led to a shift in the IT industry and the advent of a new solution that proactively monitors and can help manage an organization’s entire IT network. It’s called Managed Services and covers most networked devices in the workplace.

Managed Service Solution Providers (MSSP) aim to not only manage the daily IT operations of an organization, but also prevent system issues, eliminate costly downtime and enhance the end user experience. Here’s a look at a Managed Service Solution:

Pricing
Through a Managed Service Solution, organizations receive an all-in-one cost per user that provides all the software, service and support whether it’s on premise or in the cloud. This model best fits organizations with 20 to 200 users, although it can be scaled to serve much larger organizations. In those cases, the pricing typically needs to be adjusted to allow MSSP to meet unique needs of a large or small organization.

Simplification
In the past, organizations would choose the service they needed from an a la carte menu and paid per device. This model was cumbersome because it was sometimes unclear what technologies were covered and which were not.

The move from the a la carte model to a Managed Services Solution simplifies the process for both the business and the technology provider. While the a la carte model provided a myriad of options, it often became too complicated and cumbersome to implement.

User Experience
The evolution of Managed Services Solutions shifts the focus from providing service for a device to managing the end user experience. The end users – employees – want to create, print and share a file, and they do not care who’s managing that experience. With Managed Services Solutions, organizations shift the responsibility for providing a seamless and smooth user experience to a provider.

Employees receive one number to call for assistance for all their technology needs. Employees can call a help desk for immediate support remotely and when necessary, have a technician regularly scheduled to visit their location to fix any issues and provide necessary visual inspection to ensure optimum performance and uptime.

The inclusion of on-site calls is not a guarantee. Only a few Managed Services Solution Providers currently include the service within the monthly pricing.

Looking Forward
Organizations that use Managed Service Solutions also can rely on their providers to roll out new applications and upgrades. This provides additional benefits to organizations, including faster implementation of key applications because the providers understand their network.

The advent of new technology and business applications – almost daily now – likely will make Managed Services Solutions a preferred method for businesses to manage all of their technology.