New Trends In Managed Services: P Is For Profitability

We’ve all seen the benefits of managed IT support. But have you ever wondered if there’s a better way to grow you business from the inside out?

Many CFOs are approaching 2015 with a deep focus on culling out areas within their core businesses to pinpoint new sources of revenue. Ones that have been overlooked for years and yet can add profits with minimal investment. However, what many executives don’t look are ways to increase profits by maximizing manpower and IT costs.

Often when we speak with an organization interested in learning how can help them migrate their systems to our managed services, there’s usually one question that comes up. How do we protect our existing network and technical infrastructure while also growing our business?

We recommend taking a critical look at your line-item expenses. But not merely by evaluating your costs with your accounting department. What’s common with most sized companies is something we call detachment. Here’s how it goes…

IT technicians spend nearly 75% of their time fixing and repairing internal technology to support your users.

Accounting reports to the CFO on what types of fixed-costs are required to keep your organization afloat. Besides payroll and facility costs, technology typically trails at a distant third.

Users and service personnel spend much of their work week processing profit-generating tasks.

Middle-management supports your workforce while also answering to senior managers to report on whether projections will be met.

What’s missing? It’s almost always an in-house assessment whether your current in-house IT department can decrease costs while also increasing production. Granted, your company can only grow at a pace your manpower can support. But what we find unique in many cases when speaking with companies looking to outsource is they usually don’t know what their true IT costs are at any given moment.

Why should they? Based on our research,

A large percentage of organizations have little to no hard data on the cost of running their IT.

Is this shocking? Yes and no.

Obviously, not fully understanding the financial impact maintaining your networks and servers have on your profitability will make you wonder if you’re overpaying. But honestly, most companies are so busy operating their core businesses they do not have the resources or time to pinpoint IT expenses.

If you’re wondering about your own internal IT costs, the next question to ask yourself is whether or not a hybrid approach may fit your organization.

Hybrids come in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps you’re ready to implement a public or private cloud network but don’t quite know if it’s financially prudent. Oftentimes hybrid scenarios can prove far more profitable. Meaning you may not need to outsource all of your technology needs but do need help to maximize ones that are falling behind in performance.

One size fits all thinking when considering a MSP solution never works. In fact, you’d better do a full-scale analysis of your networks, users and frequency of downtime. Remember, when your networks are down production always suffers and impacts your profitability.