CIOs are finding themselves under increasing pressure as IT infrastructures become progressively complex, with the explosion of cloud services and exponential data growth becoming a problematic issue. Earlier this year MTI research found that nearly half of IT professionals in the UK (44 per cent) feel they don’t have the capacity to accommodate increased IT demands, while only one in nine feels they are fully resourced (11 per cent).
Time is becoming ever more precious to CIOs, whose roles have dramatically changed over the years with a more strategic focus. Today’s CIO’s are responsible for business transformation and play a vital role in helping businesses to gain the competitive edge through the use of technology. With the whole organisation looking to IT to lead innovation, CIO’s and their teams cannot afford to be distracted by time-consuming administrative tasks. To reduce their workload and IT administration processes, CIOs can take a step back and adopt managed services. This enables IT departments to outsource their IT to a technology consultancy that can take daily management tasks off their hands.
By operating robust managed services offering CIOs can significantly streamline their system administration tasks, freeing them to focus on more important tasks. The daily management of the IT environment is carried out externally, with the focus on the operations management of hardware and software whilst ensuring service delivery. Within this, the strongest focuses will be on capacity planning and provisioning, security management, proactive technical support and technical upgrades.
In addition, CIOs will also notice an increase in their organisational security and a reduction in downtime. The performance of their systems is routinely monitored externally through datacentres and networks that offer 24x7x365 support, all backed by service level agreements. This provides real-time detection of security threats and problems. A disaster that could previously have gone unnoticed until it caused several hours of downtime can now be spotted and solved by the service provider before it can affect the business.
The net result of this is an increase in organisational productivity, enabling CIOs to focus their attention on pressing business issues rather than having to waste their time worrying about day-to-day IT systems management and routine administrative tasks. Companies can outsource as little or as much of their IT needs as they like in the knowledge that their IT department’s workload is being freed up to deliver the strategic and competitive advantage that will help the business succeed in the current economic landscape.
By leveraging the right technology and working with a reputable managed service provider, businesses can rest assured that corporate data and information is kept secure outside their premises, whilst enhancing business continuity in the process. This enables early notification of potential problems, allowing staff to swiftly address issues without impacting on the company’s business – all without the involvement of the CIO.
Implementing solutions to meet the increase in demands are heightening the workloads of IT departments. Half of the respondents to our survey said the increased demands were “significantly” eating into their workload and one in six (16 per cent) indicated that the increased workload was “catastrophic” or “overwhelming.”
The good news for CIOs is that utilising remote managed services puts them and their IT departments in complete control of their organisation’s IT environment. CIOs no longer have to worry about the management of their company’s infrastructure as they now have a vital tool that helps them become more effective, and provides their organisation with reliable, flexible IT support.
