ManagedITServices-Collaborating-with-an-MSP

With more and more companies becoming Global (Global organizational strategy tailored to adapt to Local opportunities and requirements), the CIOs, IT department heads and top management have found the ever increasing need to not only manage their own robust, innovative company IT services and applications for their customers, but also to perform the Big data management of their prospective leads and existing clients. It is the same for indigenous companies as well, who have big clientele base in their respective countries.

Speaking of managing the IT, the predominant areas where these companies need help managing or need a third party for managed IT services are: Network, Storage, Server and Backup.

“So what’s the best solution?”

Simple! Seek the services of a Managed Service Partner (MSP) who can help you manage operations in these areas so that the company can:

  • Cut unnecessary costs and reduce their OpEx
  • Shift their focus to other operations or main projects which are their core competencies
  • Retain current talent pool for the realization and deliverance of their works and tasks effectively and efficiently
  • Eliminate the daunting task of hunting for expert individuals for managing these IT services
  • Support innovation and facilitate growth

“Does our company really need an MSP?” might be what some think.

Well, let’s take a quick glance at some of the statistical findings of CompTIA for the year 2015:

  • Improving the efficiency and reliability of IT operations was a main driving factor for using an MSP for 56 percent of companies with 100 or more employees and 47 percent of companies with fewer than 100 employees
  • Enhanced security and compliance was a driving factor for 38 percent of companies of all sizes
  • “Every device that employees use to conduct business-smartphones and smartwatches, tablets and laptops-is a potential security vulnerability. Companies that fail to acknowledge and address this fact face the very real risk of becoming a victim of cyber criminals and hackers.”Kelly Ricker, Senior Vice President of events and education at CompTIA
  • ROI/cost savings was a driving factor for 33 percent of companies with 100 or more employees and 28 percent of companies with fewer than 100 employees

Also CompTIA’s Big Data Insights and Opportunities survey of 402 business and IT professionals, which found that 51 percent have a big data initiative in place, with 63 percent relying on data for daily operations and 72 percent having seen their big data projects surpass expectations.
Plus, over one-third of respondents are already using IT firms for their data needs, with an additional 35 percent of end user companies thinking of using a third party (17th Dec 2015)

So yes, your company would benefit from the services of an MSP.

“Ok let’s start aligning with an MSP then?”

Great!! But it’s really not that easy to find the right one.

For the big companies who go for the “big names” in the field, ultimately realize most of them don’t quite offer a tailored Managed IT service for their already in-use platform or the MSP doesn’t have a structured Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Example: The company Creative Solutions in Healthcare switched from Microsoft Azure to VMware vCloud Air as their MSP for Virtualization and Migration to cloud services after a failed pilot with the former.

For those companies in growth mode, they get a myriad of ‘How to select the right MSP’ blogs, when they search online and ends up even more confused than when they started.

Things to do when selecting the right MSP

  1. Needless to say, A SWOT analysis of your own company, and discovering areas where the company needs the services of an MSP
  2. Can MSP actually align itself to your pain points and provide tailored services
  3. And finally, does the MSP offer you:

Storage and Management Support

  • Manage day-day documented storage allocations
  • On-call support
  • Firmware maintenance and Monitoring
  • Reporting and documentation

Network & Desktop Support

  • OS Installation & Configuration
  • Application Installation & Configuration such as Outlook, Office & other desktop applications
  • Antivirus & Security
  • LAN/WAN monitoring

Server Support

  • Unix and Windows OS Installation & Configuration
  • Patch Management
  • On-call support
  • Application installs and File system Management

Backup & Recovery

  • Backup Scheduling
  • Backup Monitoring
  • Agent installs
  • On-call support

– all focused on keeping your data safe, secure and accessible 24/7.

Check out our white papers and articles also.

Posted in IT Infrastructure Transformation