Managed services: signs you need a partner
Does your organisation need an IT managed services partner? It might seem like an impossible question to answer without knowing about your specific context. After all, managed services contracts come in all shapes and sizes – indeed, their very flexibility is one of the qualities that makes them so useful.
Nevertheless, if you are wondering whether it would be beneficial to bring a managed services partner on board, there are some signs you should look out for no matter what the sector or scale of your organisation.
You are suffering recurring IT incidents
Whether the same performance problem keeps rearing its head over and over again, or a whole range of incidents are repeatedly slowing down or taking down machines, applications or systems, recurrent IT incidents are sure-fire signs that expert help is required to keep your IT infrastructure running smoothly. A good managed services partner should not only be able to resolve IT incidents rapidly and comprehensively; it should also be able to prevent many of those issues from occurring in the first place. Win-win.
Your technology is restricting business development
Whether you are seeking to employ new staff, deploy new applications, expand into new markets or areas or simply drive new innovations, information technology is likely to play a key role in your business’s ambitions. What happens, then, if that technology is restricting said plans? Perhaps you are unsure of how best to equip new staff members, or maybe a tool you want to try out won’t work in all aspects of your organisation. Understanding precisely how technology is restricting your plans – and, more importantly, how to remove those restrictions – is an area in which manged services providers can typically provide great value.
Data management is becoming a chore
As organisations grow, so too does the volume of data they have to manage. Are you coping? Data management is not merely about controlling where information is stored, how it is transmitted and who has access to it; it is also about ensuring that it remains accessible in the event of natural disaster, technology failure, cyberattack or human error. A managed services partner should be able to both map and rationalise your existing data management, and design and deploy a comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity plan, to ensure that data and applications are always working for your organisation.
You are struggling to achieve necessary compliance
The precise regulatory, legal and compliance frameworks your organisation needs to work to in terms of IT management will vary according to your sector and where you operate. However, in an increasingly dynamic IT landscape, they are likely to be varied, and complex. Achieving appropriate levels of compliance is not just about putting the right tools and processes in place; it also requires you to be able to demonstrate those interventions, so that you can prove ongoing compliance quickly and easily. Managed services partners can help on both fronts.
You don’t have enough IT expertise in-house
This is a simple issue, but perhaps the most relevant one of all. The enterprise IT landscape is increasingly complex, even for small businesses. Hiring and maintaining internal staff who can cover incident prevention and response, troubleshooting, upgrades and patches, staff training and development, data management, disaster recovery, regulatory compliance and many, many more IT functions – to say nothing of providing strategic guidance on how to develop the IT infrastructure as the organisation grows – is a huge undertaking. A good managed services partner should be precisely that – a business partner – which helps guide the organisation in question to future success. Is this really something you can do without?
