Flexibility and transparency are a must for IT Service providers

Clients demand a service that is able to evolve with their changing organisation

The unpredictability of the economic climate, together with the ever-increasing need for cost-efficient IT and a better understanding of how technology can create a business advantage have deeply affected the way organisations see and manage their IT. For those outsourcing all or part of their Service Desk, in particular, this combination of factors has created the need for greater flexibility and transparency in IT Support contracts.

If, up until now, businesses of all types and sizes found themselves trapped in a managed service contract lasting several years with an IT service that was no longer fit for their organisation, they are no longer able to accept this. An organisation’s size and structure might change at any time, growing, downsizing, or simply changing strategy and direction to survive in the market and remain competitive. IT Support functions need to adapt to cater for any of these changes.

At the same time, organisations do not want to have to pay extra for every change that they want to make or addition to the initially agreed service or new project within it. What they are looking for in a service provider is an understanding of their needs and to provide a suitable level of flexibility – with regards to both the contract and the model they provide – as well as being transparent on any costs involved.

A research paper issued by CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, showed that nearly half of organisations interviewed have had all or part of their IT outsourced to a managed service provider. The results of the ‘Trends in Managed Services’ survey reveal that companies that did not choose to outsource were mostly concerned about costs (49 per cent), but also about whether they would be able to bring services back in-house after an outsourcing move, stated by 13 per cent of respondents. Nine per cent said they were unsure about the process. Organisations also stated they would have liked more information to consider before the decision-making process. In particular, 42 per cent of respondents would have liked to have been presented with more options to get out of a contract in the case things did not work out.

It is obvious that transparency on cost, processes and consequences involved in a managed service is a must to win over clients’ trust. When they manage to do this, the majority of managed services users are mostly satisfied with the services provided, and a third are very satisfied – however, it seems that the larger the company, the lower the level of satisfaction. Survey participants cited as a reason for dissatisfaction the fact the cost savings expectations had not been met.

Generally, flexibility tends to be more difficult to find in larger service providers, who are mostly used by larger companies, as they tend to offer out-of-the-box packages that are rather inflexible and filled with hidden costs for each extra (for instance, when you exceed the number of calls agreed upon for a fixed monthly charge) or change. This can have a huge impact on the cost savings the client was initially expecting.

Having a large number of clients, these providers do not always strive to perform at their best with each of the organisations they work for: if they lose a less desirable client, they can easily replace it with a new one. A famous name is not automatically synonym with better quality, yet it is not uncommon for organisations choosing the most popular, large service providers to change to another similarly big name as soon as the contract comes to an end, only to repeat the same mistakes again – trapping themselves in a repeated circle by staying with large providers.

A smaller service provider with fewer clients and specific expertise may be able to concentrate more on the individual cases and offer a service that is not only tailored to each organisation, but can also evolve over time as the business changes. It will agree with client on the specific features of the service to be provided, rather than dictate the rules themselves.

With fewer people and layers of management to deal with, the rapport will also be better: in the CompTIA report, communication between the service provider and the client is strictly linked to higher levels of satisfaction, and in fact seven out of ten of organisations which reported being ‘highly satisfied’ received regular activity reports from the provider they were using.

In any case, for a successful outcome, it is essential that the service provider is seen (and acts) as a partner, a collaborator and not as a simple provider of a service. At the same time, be it in-house, outsourced or a mixed bag, IT has to be seen as part of the business, an enabler and a value-add, rather than just a mere service in order for it to produce real cost-efficiencies, and bring the organisation to even greater success.