PEI has been providing managed services in one form or another for over 8 years. In that time, we’ve heard and seen a lot regarding what managed IT services are or aren’t, and the impact is has, or doesn’t have, on businesses. Here are a few of the observations we’ve made.
Fiction – Managed Services are designed to replace our in-house staff. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. At the core of any service model is a robust, 24×7 monitoring application. It empowers the in-house staff letting them be more proactive. It also frees them to invest their time on more mission critical IT initiatives that deliver bigger benefits to their organization.
Fact – Managed Services cost less than break-fix. This is absolutely true. Break-fix services address random disasters. Fixing things after they break is generally more costly and takes longer to affect the recovery. The impact of downtime across the organization is an added cost that can make the expense for the actual fix seem small by comparison.
Fiction – Managed Services are expensive. That’s not the case. You can customize the managed services to match your budget and properly address your critical systems. Purchasing management software that is installed and running internally, coupled with the manpower needed to customize and monitor the applications, is the most expensive approach you can take.
Fact – Managed Services have a demonstrated track record of success. We’ve got hundreds of examples where managed services have saved an organization. The tools that are used, coupled with the skill and commitment of the managed services team, continues to pay dividends to each and every customer. The biggest problem we see is a customer’s fading long term memory trying to recall what life was like prior to managed service adoption.
Tim Krueger, PEI
