How Managed Business Services deliver a real Return on Investment

Managed business services (MBS) is an investment. This may seem like a contradiction, because isn’t it simply outsourcing – and don’t companies outsource to curb costs?

It is true that a part of the MBS argument is for cutting costs, though this is not the complete picture. You may even find that the initial costs for MBS may appear higher than doing it on your own. But this is a mirage, because doing it yourself is more cumbersome, more fiscally draining and a massive drag on your organisation.

Take technology as an example. How much do you spend on acquiring new servers and software? How much time do these take away from your staff as they maintain the systems? Are your teams able to respond to real business problems, or are they simply trying to keep the lights on?

All those resources could be focused on the business and its outcomes. MBS is the art of taking operational burdens away from the organisation, without the business losing control. This is the major difference to outsourcing, which introduces uncertainties around quality and management. Outsourcing is reactionary, whereas MBS is proactive. With MBS you are always in charge, but you can expect your MBS partner to meet your expectations instead of having your own teams run around to do so. You can get out of the break/fix stalemate of traditional service provision models and start to automate routine business tasks, freeing up resources that can help your business flourish.

If MBS is done right, all you need to do is point to your service level agreement (SLA), expect your MBS provider to deliver, and tally the return on investment you should expect.

MBS is an investment for the following reasons:

• Better cost visibility: know what costs are going where through active monitoring and reporting from your MBS provider, as well as dashboards and reports you can access directly.
• Better management of resources: exercise fiscal flexibility by turning the taps on and off when you want, not when your up-front projections finally allow you to.
• No more dealing with vendors: allow your MBS provider to choose the best technology fits for your business, based on your expectations and not what the industry thinks is hot stuff.
• No more draining IT problems: your IT teams can get back to what they are employed to do, improving processes and creating new opportunities for the business.
• Better expectations for uptime: if the network goes down, that is not your problem, but the problem of your MBS provider. Expect results, not excuses.
• Better Security: your company is not a security business, so don’t waste a lot of time and money trying to become one – your MBS provider has the scale and skills depth to handle those requirements.
• Better compliance: compliance is important, but shouldn’t be your burden – rather set your requirements and let the MBS provider worry about the details.
• Scale and flexibility: don’t buy capacity ahead of time, hoping that you’ve covered the business needs – an MBS arrangement gives you the ability to choose and change without worrying about sweating value out of purchases.

It is clear that Managed Business Services involves more than offloading aspects of the business to partners. It is a powerful engine to help take away many operational burdens while maintaining full control and expectations. Experienced MBS providers such as ITEC walk the journey with their customers, creating service solutions fit to your business’ needs today and into the future.

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