Increase Productivity Performance and Profitability with Managed Services
By Lorraine Azzinaro, Chief Operating Officer, Aspire Technology Partners
From the perspective of the COO, managed services play a significant role in company productivity, performance, and profitability. Managed services enable companies to focus on their core competencies where they can become more competitive and, ultimately, more profitable.
Technology is constantly changing- becoming more complex- and organizations across all industries have by necessity become highly dependent on technology. Corporate expectations of IT staff to keep up with the latest technology while simultaneously building out the company’s technological capabilities, and providing consistent training to these employees, can ultimately result in reducing the resources available for the company to serve and support their core competencies.
Let me give you an example, if I am a distributor of plumbing supplies, that knowledge of plumbing supplies forms my focus and core competency. I know how to source them, package them, educate plumbers about them, and distribute them on time. I stay abreast of the latest trends in bathrooms, kitchens, and commercial HVAC so I can be the best resource to my customers, and consistently attract new customers who have confidence in my abilities and knowledge. That’s where I want to focus my limited IT resources as well – looking for ways to improve my current and future customers’ experience when working with my company.
Simultaneously, I need to ensure my office technology is maintained, upgraded, and protected. However, I may not necessarily have an IT staff available for 24×7 monitoring to certify that my security profile is properly maintained and that bad actors are not trying to penetrate my network, steal my customer and corporate data, or install ransomware.
There’s much more to security these days than this simple example, and that’s when a managed services approach – in this case, managed security services – is invaluable. Managed Security services provide businesses with trained specialists and experts who monitor and protect your company’s security profile without requiring additional investment in salaries and benefits.
“The global managed security services (MSS) market size is expected to grow from USD 24.05 billion in 2018 to USD 47.65 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.7% during the forecast period.”[1] This trend is important to note, as it impacts businesses large and small. There are three approaches to managed services that I focus on as COO – each tied to a specific goal.
On one end of the spectrum, you can outsource IT tasks that require fewer skills or are highly repetitive, such as help desk calls, patching servers, and similar activities. This enables your internal staff to focus on more strategic initiatives in your organization.
In the middle of the spectrum, you flip that scenario. Hire experts and specialists to help with your strategic initiatives, while you maintain the internal staff to monitor the corporate help desk and respond to daily IT requests. This empowers you to be strategic about IT investments while maintaining a tightly-knit internal team.
And at the other end of the spectrum, you can outsource your entire IT operation. This option enables you to focus strictly on the core part of your business. Using our earlier example, you can focus on becoming the greatest plumbing distributor, while a managed services company maintains your current IT infrastructure, exploring new technologies that you can use to compete more effectively.
In all three cases, you benefit from leveraging a purpose-built managed services organization without assuming the financial responsibility for the internal improvements which are critical for that firm- update and maintain their staff’s credentials, certifications, and training on all IT infrastructure. You also benefit from the knowledge the managed services team has gained from other similar and different industry engagements that are unavailable to your internal IT team.
If you would like to learn more about how to leverage Managed Services to improve your organization’s productivity, performance, and profitability please send me an email at lazzinaro@aspiretransforms.com. Aspire’s team can work with your business to determine the best maintenance and assistance for your company, so you can get back to focusing on larger strategic outcomes. You can also visit www.aspiretransforms.com for more information.
Aspire Technology Partners is a Cisco Gold Certified Partner engrained in solution pillars that set us apart as a true Cisco solutions provider. We are committed to the continuous improvement of expertise and skillsets around Cisco initiatives that enable us to help and guide customers in the adoption and management of technology architectures designed to transform their organization. We hold Cisco Master Specializations in Collaboration, Security, Cloud & Managed Services and is one of only 25 partners in the US to receive the Cisco Advanced Customer Experience Specialization.