The accelerated pace of change in the business landscape is partly driven by economic, political and social structures, and partly through the impact of technologies. It is everyone's guess how many brands in the information and telecommunications sector are traded locally. These are sourced from around the world, often with little if any sustainable local support. The growing lack of skills on the communications supply side further impacts on the disconnect between the introduction and support of intelligent software-based enterprise communications systems for commerce and industry, and the measure of support offered by vendors. In this context, managed services - also known as out-tasking - must support the future requirements of business with least downtime and increasing optimisation of business processes.
“Although the ICT industry is in dire straits insofar as sophisticated talent for customer service support is concerned, it is still well placed to integrate itself into the customer domain and manage its communications infrastructure, thus allowing the company to get on with its own core business,” says Fred Maurus, Head of Technology and Marketing at Siemens Enterprise Communications. “The model of managed services allows for a relationship to develop between the customer and the technology vendor, thus enabling each to get on with their respective business interests. From the supply side, vendors manage the technology infrastructure and introduce upgrades relevant to the business objectives of the customer. This is a partnership, which develops over time, with cascading effects for seamless business process integration on a technology platform, no matter the nature of the customer's business. This platform is forever evolving into new levels of maturity, allowing for modern business practices.”
Maurus says managed services can only be effective if vendors have a complete understanding of issues and processes that determine the longevity of a company. Once the concept of managed services has been adopted by the customer, operational cost savings become more transparent and budget parameters more predictable. “There is a direct correlation between the management of technology services, business process optimisation and productivity gains. However, the vendor challenge is to manage complex technology environments and without broad-based experience on how to manage robust, reliable and sophisticated technology infrastructure, crisis management will be the order of the day,” says Maurus. It is not only PABX units that need to be managed. Changing technologies, more applications and business process integrations necessitate new and advanced knowledge and skills, which in South Africa are difficult to obtain and retain.
Many companies still manage their voice and data infrastructures as separate entities. Customers who do have separate voice and data specialists have not necessarily completed the convergence and still lack a common approach to new technology challenges. Hardware, software and infrastructure must integrate seamlessly onto one platform, ultimately reaching the concept of unified communications. As a result, solutions are getting more complex and difficult to manage. Therefore, vendors previously implementing ICT solutions are now becoming also service providers for managed services. The vendor takes on the responsibility of managing both the technology infrastructure and the customer's voice and data specialists.
“The basis for such a relationship is the development of a service level agreement in which several factors such as technology refreshments, cost, performance and human capital are confirmed,” says Maurus. “Customers are still reluctant to surrender their technology and staff to a service provider, however, the introduction of contractual penalties guarantees that customer service is upheld in every respect. Managed services offer customers huge benefits.”
According to Maurus, companies have better control over their expenditures and are in a position to reduce capital expenditure and streamline operational costs. Assets are transferred to the service provider. Budgets can be properly set and incidental costs can be something of the past. This is comparable with purchasing a new vehicle where both the parts and the labour are to the account of the service provider. Recruitment, training and operational costs linked to the technology infrastructure is to the account of the service provider.
“Obviously, there are different vendors with different levels of maturity. If the assessment of the vendor is done well, then the customer is at a low risk. Above all, managed services allow the customer to move from one service provider to another.” Maurus confirms that as the competence of the vendor is in the field of communications the customer has ongoing access to technical expertise - either on site or at the premises of the vendor. Vendor knowledge furthermore extends to computerised reporting, consulting on report content, asset tracking, reporting on demand, event-based charging, to mention a few. Some companies who have not established professional procurement procedures in recent years sit with the dilemma of having to manage different brands of communications systems - especially voice communication. This incidence of deployment of multi-vendor brands creates additional costs in having to manage different suppliers and technologies internally. A professional service provider can manage different brands and technologies within the scope of a service agreement and manage the brand disparities towards an optimised solution.
“Globally, the trend is for organisations to centralise core functions and to decentralise those services that are non-core. This trend is also on the technology front, thus reducing variable costs to the company as these are fixed in the annual communications technology budget.” Says Maurus: “Companies such as our own, which has the financial strength, telecommunications and IT history, reputation, technology innovation, a skilled pool of relevant resources which customers do not have, as well as a real measure of flexibility, are well placed to benchmark transformation in managed services.”
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