You've made the important decision to hire a managed service provider (MSP) to handle some or all of your IT and telecom tasks. Chances are, you are a small- or medium-sized business (SMB) and are feeling buried by constant changes in technology and the expense and manpower necessary to keep up with them. You are under constant pressure to keep up productivity and quality levels, at reduced or constrained budget levels. The decision was a natural one.
This may in fact be one of the most important decisions you can make for your company and your department. So you will want to choose wisely and make the most cost-effective and informed selection possible. To effectively choose an MSP to help with the heavy IT burden you are faced with, you will need to take a step back and examine a few things.
First off, what is your motivation for turning to managed or cloud services? There has been a lot of talk lately about the Technology Adoption Gap (TAG), the growing space between new technologies and the ability of IT organizations to efficiently adopt those technologies. With contact center and unified communications technologies, for example, becoming more and more complex, IT departments are feeling the pressure to deploy solutions quickly and can't keep up. Consequently, organizations may be held back and prevented from meeting their growth potential.
"We see clients that are increasingly taking advantage of the option to pay for technology via the managed services way," said Ed Nalbandian, VP of Avaya Operations Services. "Companies are getting access to technology and expertise faster while maintaining flat utility-based costs, only paying for what is used."
"Offering a managed option in an OpEX model enables companies to quickly overcome the technology gap without having to assume the IT equipment as CapEx while also spreading the cost, he added.”This enhances a company’s ability to meet and beat their current growth strategy."
Once you have determined your motivation for seeking an MSP, you can flesh out what you hope to get out of the relationship and make the best selection possible. Working with a provider that has quality resources and equipment is a great first step to reducing the risk and expense associated with deploying new solutions or updating legacy ones.
You should also ask if the MSP will help you maximize your return on technology investment. By investing in services instead of costly equipment and software (and manpower), your company should realize a much better ROI.
Another major consideration when hiring an MSP is to ensure they will handle the role of maintenance and repair. Given the limitations imposed by the TAG, IT departments need to shift to an innovative and strategic role instead of putting out fires and micromanaging. Handing over everyday duties to a service provider goes a long way toward allowing your IT department to realize its true potential.
Edited by
Jamie Epstein
