Latest Trends in IT Managed Services

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Kirill Bensonoff

Your company’s arrangement with its janitorial service or break-room supplier may not have changed much in the past 20 years, but chances are you’re looking for something much different from your IT managed services provider than you did even a year or two ago. And if you’re not, maybe you should be.

Here, then, are four important trends in IT managed services that you may want to consider.

1. BYOD. You’re probably heard the acronym for “bring your own device” before, but if you haven’t talked with your IT company about it, it’s about time. If your workers are using company email or accessing your network on their iPads and smartphones, you need to know how to keep confidential data safe, and how to make the most effective use of the amazing technology that we all carry in our pockets these days.

2. The Cloud. This is another term that’s been on most of our radar screens for a few years now. Yet when it comes to one of the most obvious uses of the cloud, offsite data backup, only 33 percent of small businesses have signed on, according to a 2012 survey. Managed Services providers should be able to explain which cloud functions you might want and help you manage them efficiently and securely.

3. Managed Print Services. The paperless office is a nice idea, but most businesses still have a significant need to print materials, whether for internal or external uses. Managed print services can unify and streamline printing, help reduce costs, and give telecommuters access to secure printers. That might explain why the number of total printers managed by MSPs jumped from 86,000 to 107,000 over the past year alone.

4. Thought Leadership. IT companies once functioned something like plumbers—they were someone you called to fix problems and then go away. Now, businesses’ IT strategies are becoming a big part of their overall strategies. A good MSP can become an insider that understands your company and finds new ways to make it work better from top to bottom through technological innovation.

It’s possible all these trends may not be relevant to your business, but there’s a very good chance that at least some of them are. If you’re not sure how, you might try setting up a meeting with your managed services provider to ask some questions.

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Managed IT Services vs. Cloud Services Provider

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Kirill Bensonoff

Shopping for IT services can be tricky. The whole point is finding a professional firm that has more technical expertise than you do. But without all that specialized knowledge, it’s hard to know whether a service will deliver what your office needs. Things get even trickier when you start comparing providers who may be using different terms to describe very similar services.

One case in point is the term Managed IT Services, or Managed Services Provider (MSP), versus Cloud Services Provider (CSP). Some firms just call themselves MSPs or CSPs, while others may list both terms in their marketing material.

So, what’s the difference? MSPs handle all sorts of IT functions, from setting up a new network to troubleshooting an iPad that’s started acting strange. As more and more businesses are bringing some of their IT to the cloud—whether just for backup or email hosting or for their whole network infrastructure—some see CSPs as the wave of the future. Essentially, CSPs handle a company’s IT needs in the cloud. In many cases, that means they partner with one or more big cloud providers, figure out which services you can use, create a custom package for you and then keep it functioning smoothly.

Of course, even if everything is great in the cloud, you could still run into problems back in the office if an employee spills a mug full of coffee on his laptop. In many cases, what businesses need is some combination of MSP and CSP. And the good news is, that’s also what many IT firms offer. The bad news? The nature of their offerings isn’t always clear from their website or initial sales pitch. That’s why it’s important to have specific questions ready about the services they offer and the way they fit in with your business’s ways of operating.

Ultimately, you don’t have to be an IT expert to hire an IT expert. You just have to know what your company needs.

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Remote Technical Support: Faster + Cheaper = Better

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Kirill Bensonoff

Computers and the internet have changed the way just about every kind of service works. Hospitals share test results with doctors instantly. Banks move money electronically with less and less need for paper checks or cash. And it’s no different when it comes to taking care of the computers themselves. Nearly universal high-speed internet means that remote technical support is now very often a faster, cheaper and more effective option than onsite services.

An experienced IT provider these days can often diagnose problems in your network almost immediately without every setting foot in your office. That’s especially true for companies that have some or all of their IT in the cloud, but even if all your data is sitting on a server in the closet or a C drive under your desk, you can invite an off-site tech worker into your network over the internet. An expert working in an office miles away can operate a virus-infected computer remotely, just as if they were sitting in front of it. They can even get on the phone with you at the same time and talk you through the problem so you can watch out for it in the future. And they can do all of this in a fraction of the time it would take them just to drive to your office.

Remote technical support can sometimes even work for physical problems with your hardware. With smartphone cameras and webcams, it’s easy to share images of your machines. A technician can diagnose a problem based on data from the network, tell you just where to point a camera and then explain the problem they see. They may be able to tell you to switch where a cable is plugged in, or order you a new piece of equipment to replace something that’s on the fritz.

What’s the benefit of this switch? It’s the same as in any industry. Doing things over the internet—moving data from one place to another—is quicker and cheaper than moving a person the same distance.

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IT Support and the Worker-Driven Tech Revolution

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Kirill Bensonoff

As you’d expect from an event with “consumer” right in the title, the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show kicking off Tuesday in Las Vegas isn’t particularly focused on business’s needs. But the business IT site Information Management has an interesting take on why enterprise should be paying attention to CES anyway.

For one thing, a lot of much-discussed tech trends, from gamification to next-generation tablets, apply to companies as much as to consumers.

Even more, though, these days consumers—who, after all, are also workers—are often the ones driving the adoption of new tech in the workplace. If a delivery driver finds an app that makes it easier for him to steer around traffic as he makes his deliveries, you can bet he’ll use it, even if it hasn’t been approved by the IT department. In fact, it can sometimes be the techies who slow down adoption of new things because of security or reporting concerns.

Does that mean computer specialists’ only place at the office is to put a brake on the rampant spread of new technology? Of course not. A modern IT support service—whether it’s an internal department or an outside contractor—needs to be more involved than ever in the day-to-day life of an office.

Thwarting the adoption of new tech is not just futile, but it can lead to employees inadvertently do things that may be illegal, or counterproductive. Instead, IT support staff need to help employees at every level think through their tech needs and find ways to use the best tools for the job, and use them safely.

That requires not just on-demand IT support but IT consulting to figure out strategies to stay on top of trends and let workers’ innovation work for the company, not against it

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IT Service Trends for 2013

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Kirill Bensonoff

Each year it sees like business processes, even for the smallest of enterprises, become more deeply enmeshed with technology. Here are three trends you’ll want to stay on top of this year.

1. Devices. Technology research firm Gartner predicts worldwide spending on devices—including PCs, smartphones, tablets and printers—will jump 6.3 percent to $66 billion in 2013, after only growing 2.9 percent last year. That’s especially significant since Gartner also points out the prices of devices like tablets are falling fast—it means people are going to be buying a whole lot of them. Smartphones are also on the cusp of overtaking PCs as the way most people get online. Questions about bring-your-own-device policies, company-owned computers and tablets, and accessibility of work systems from phones and tablets are bound to grow, and IT management companies will need to have answers.

2. The Cloud. Gartner also says the global market for public cloud services rose 20 percent in 2012 to $109 billion and it will grow to $206.6 billion in 2016. In particular, this looks like the moment for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), the type of cloud service that allows companies the maximum flexibility in designing their own systems on remote servers. IaaS will grow from faster than other sorts of cloud computing in coming years, according to Gartner. Migrating data and infrastructure to the cloud is going to be big business for IT service firms.

3. Big Data. This one is bound to be on trend lists for many years to come, but 2013 will surely see increasing focus on the management of the ever-growing mounds of information piling up on corporate servers. Already, major IT companies have whole divisions devoted to figuring out how to make sense of reams of customer transactions, social media interactions and security camera footage. These ideas are bound to trickle down and become something that businesses and IT firms of every size find themselves considering.

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