Don’t let your IT infrastructure hold you back

by Alan Parkinson, Director, Symatrix 

 With the business climate still challenging, organisations need to find ways to drive efficiencies and enhanced value from their technology investments. Competition is often intense in today’s global economy. To stay ahead of their rivals, therefore, businesses increasingly need to innovate and add value to their offering to meet fast-changing market conditions. That is not easy to achieve, especially if they try to manage everything in-house.  

There are skills shortages across multiple industry sectors today. Equally, as the baby boomer generation retires, there is a lack of experienced workers in many areas of the economy, with manufacturing, construction, and healthcare among the sectors worst affected. Coupled with this, technology is constantly evolving, and the skills required to work with it are becoming increasingly complex. The need for high-quality change management is ever present. In line with this, many businesses find technology too complex to handle themselves unaided.  

Many are migrating to the cloud in a bid to achieve enhanced agility and scalability and keep a lid on costs. Unfortunately, the reality often fails to live up to the vision. The constant cadence of new software updates and the associated testing and reporting is difficult to navigate. Businesses often do not have the right resources internally to complete testing and associated impact analysis. Recruitment is difficult and expensive, and organisations often take many weeks, and even months, to fill vacancies.    

Together, these challenges prevent their organisations from getting the most from new technology implementations or cloud migrations. Whatever the specific challenges, many cloud migrations fall short of delivering the intended value. 

 Finding a new way forward  

Managed services can provide a solution, offering businesses the benefits of low capital outlay, predictable monthly costs, and easier, more efficient technology adoption and cloud migration.  At the same time, managed services can help organisations enhance security, enabling the businesses that use it to reduce the risk of data breaches, increase the availability of their IT systems and improve compliance with industry regulations.  

Businesses also have the opportunity to tap into future-proofed services, using best-of-breed technology. Added to all this, they can access outside expertise and additional problem-solving capabilities.    

There are a range of benefits that businesses can potentially attain by making the move to managed services, but there is also a wide array of barriers that can hold them up along the way. Some organisations still have concerns about loss of control and the possible complexity of the transition process. 

That’s why it is so important that as businesses make the move to managed services, they make the right choice of managed services partner. They should seek out partners that are reliable and available 24x7, and that are experienced at working with organisations from a variety of industries that can understand their needs and challenges and develop solutions tailored to their requirements.  

 By choosing a partner with all these qualities, businesses can be confident that they are getting the best possible service and that they are maximising the value of their investment in managed services. That will in turn enable to more effectively address unpredictable market shifts; stay one step ahead of the competition and be laser-focused on achieving their strategic goals.