SUPPLIER AND TECHNOFIN®

Getting best value from ICT managed services

Tom Gutteridge, Head of Business Development at Damovo, UK, highlights the latest research into ICT managed services/outsourcing, and identifies the growing need for ‘convergent suppliers’ in a world of increasingly unified ‘real time’ communications.

One of the biggest headaches facing today’s ICT manager is the sheer number of suppliers and service providers they have to manage on a daily basis.

Thanks in part to the proliferation of IP (internet protocol) as the de-facto communications protocol, the increasingly tight integration of communications technologies with business applications and with the presentation of these applications on multiple devices, it is surprising to see so little integration on the supplier side.

This means that ICT managers can be left contracting multiple suppliers to deliver what ultimately appears to the user as a single service.

Recent research commissioned by Damovo, has revealed that over a third of UK organisations surveyed manage more than 11 separate suppliers – at the same time only 30 per cent of the organisations surveyed were aware that their suppliers were in turn managing other third parties on their behalf.

With integrated ICT never more critical to delivering business success and increasing demand to measure its end to end performance in terms of end user service quality such a supplier model will be difficult to maintain.

To outsource or not outsource? Today, nearly all organisations employ some varying degree of contracting ICT services from augmenting in-house resources right through to full outsourcing.

ICT managers must decide on how to best utilise out or part sourcing to deliver true business and operational benefit, as it can provide access to proven expertise and cost-effective resources and services.

According to analyst house Butler Group, network outsourcing is one of the highest growth areas is managed services. It estimates that almost 40 per cent of organisations are likely to outsource part of their infrastructure over the next two years.

An increase driven by enterprises looking to roll out new communications services as they try to do more with their networks.

Many ICT departments would like to undertake extensive IP telephony or unified communications projects, yet do not have the time or skills to successfully support such initiatives. Smaller organisations in particular can find it difficult to attract specialist networking staff.

Outsourcing gives them the flexibility to scale up or down as the business changes and introduce new technology without having to hire new people.

Breaking down silos and maximising skills one trend that is apparent is that there appears to be an underlying silo mentality when it comes to outsourcing, with many organisations packaging their outsourcing needs by seeking suppliers to support technology – desktop/applications/server/ infrastructure etc – rather than an end-to-end service.

Enterprises must plan their future ICT roadmaps, whilst also deciding which supplier or suppliers play best into their overall ICT strategy. With so much choice out there, it is important to ensure interoperability among various best-of-class components.

With convergence continuing to drive the integration of once stand alone services, there is an increasing need for ‘convergent suppliers’. A smarter supplier model that consolidates ICT support makes sense.

Suppliers that can support end-to-end services across communications and network infrastructure, in addition to supporting applications and devices will be more in demand in the real-time unified communications world of voice and video.

Access to requisite skills whether on a task, project or ongoing support basis will also become increasingly important if the true and wider benefits of convergence are to be realised as exemplified by unified communications where ‘presence’ status is key.

The market is showing signs of maturity and is truly starting to integrate real-time voice and video alongside business applications and deliver these to a single device of choice.

With major players such as Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Ericsson and Mitel all offering products to enable convergence and tie communications into business processes, it is essential that suppliers have a strong background and understanding of voice and data networking, application integration and end to end service support.

21st century ICT is all about simplicity to the user - delivering the content they want, when they want it and to their device of choice. So it is important that the management and support of the complex ICT services behind this also follows that mantra if new converged services are to be a success.

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