HR professionals and project managers in IT companies often go through a harrowing time in handling resource constraints. This is due to various drawbacks like attrition, increased demands and expectations from the in-house IT team. Hiring additional resources or innovative HR solutions to retain resources have not been very successful, unfortunately. The only option that is available for companies is the services of IT suppliers who provide Managed Support services. This helps them to make use of specialist expertise in IT managed solutions and as well as save on costs and improve on process efficiencies and service deliveries.
Since Managed services provide viable solutions to address manpower woes in the IT industry, they have been in huge demand, ever since the outsourcing revolution started. Besides, there is also a rapid increase in the demand for Managed Services in the last five years. The biggest advantage of availing the services of a company that provides managed support services is their ability to meet sudden increase in resource requirements. On the other hand, during the troughs of demand they will be able to roll back those resources, if their services are not required by the company.
The USP’s of many successful Managed Support Services providers are their bespoke and flexible approach. Most of the industry standard solutions lack this approach and are hence not able to offer high quality services. On the other hand they are not able to meet the distinct requirements of the clients. Clients have to pick the best solution that matches these requirements, from the limited choices available in the market. Due to this limitation, many companies are not able to maintain their efficiency levels. Reduced efficiency levels affect client-satisfaction rates and ultimately the revenues of the company.
These services have attained huge popularity, especially in the last five years. Bespoke and flexible approaches are the unique advantages of companies offering IT Managed Services. Some IT suppliers offer industry-standard solutions. The problems with these run-of-the-mill options are that they do not address the distinct requirements or specific problems of individual clients. However, IT suppliers who offer bespoke solutions conduct several layers of consulting and understand the client requirements. They formulate a customized solution to address the problems faced by the clients. Unfortunately, many companies are forced to select one of the industry standard solutions offered by their IT supplier. This is true with most IT suppliers. Flexible approach refers to the availability of project managers for consultation, both on a full and part time basis. Similarly, the availability of bi and multi lingual resources is another factor. Most projects require the services of resources well versed in the local language. Another added advantage is the expertise of the resources of the IT supplier in different operating environments. This is possible due to their experience of working in different operating environments for various clients and domains.
The most important advantage is cost-saving. The resources of the IT supplier will be required to work only when there are specific requirements for the company. Therefore, the company need not pay for idle resources. Another advantage is training and best practices. The resources of the IT supplier can train the in-house IT team on different operating environments and as well as help them benchmark the best practices and improve internal processes. The advantage is that the IT supplier does not charge the clients for these additional services.
Apart from training, the IT supplier helps the company to deal with internal process improvements. This has proved to be an advantage for many reasons. It helps to complete projects quickly and more efficiently and save lot of money. Therefore, it reduces the pressures on IT budgets.
Co-sourcing mode of engagement has proved to be superior to the conventional outsourcing models, especially in providing managed support services . In this model, there is no loss of business control and the IT supplier’s resources complement the functioning of in-house IT team.
Allied offers IT Outsourcing and Managed Support Services to small and medium-sized businesses through flexible engagement models. Allied specialises in high quality, cost effective IT support services and is the preferred partner of choice for many companies.
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