This rapid acceleration creates opportunities for managed services providers such as Codit, but also demands we keep up with the rate of change. Whilst managed services providers have previously relied heavily on resources and offered custom solutions, this ultimately limits how much they can grow. This is because it prevents them from being scalable. At Codit, we recognize that our managed services must offer a standardized solution and delivery, with software-driven delivery. This is where digital managed services come in.
What are digital managed services?
They are highly scalable, standardized offerings.
They provide deep business insights into customers, which can then be interpreted.
They reduce costs and risk in technology operations.
Building up your digital managed services
Building your digital managed services requires three steps, the first of which already has mainstream adoption. Even so, all are needed to work together to be successful:
- Standard Service Catalog: In previous years, managed services providers used complicated custom services, treating each customer uniquely. Now, successful operation processes are standardized through a standard service catalog. ITIL is the most popular of these libraries, with 85% of providers using the current version, the ITIL v4 framework, for their service management. This is what we use at Codit, where we’re working with a new ITSM tool covering ITIL best practices to improve efficiency and bring value. This new tool, 4ME, implements a range of practices including general, service management practices and technical management practices. Find the full list here. We’ve also moved to a standard operational model with our L1, L2 and L3 support.
- Digital Delivery Platform: A scalable service offer is a profitable one. This scalability can be achieved through a digital delivery platform. This involves changing your delivery processes into software, which you cannot do if your managed services are custom. After standardizing your service catalog, your organization must standardize and document the processes and functions that will deliver the offer. Another benefit of the standardized offering automatic provisioning is our Azure Landing Zone, which offers standardized monitoring and automated monitoring configuration.
- Formal Service R&D Investment: Data analytics and AIOps are becoming important to many providers, marking a move away from resource-intensive operations. This software will help to make processes scalable, and at Codit we have leveraged this with our own proof of concept. This motivates us to work on improvements. The software brings the operation together, connecting the right technologies with the right APIs to create a scalable outcome to make us competitive. However, most organizations are able to create software, but do not have the R&D budget: only around 23% of MSPs have a formal budget for AIOps and automation capabilities.
Summary
While there are many factors determining how successful a managed services provider is, the main ones include how quickly they are growing and what profit they are earning. To accelerate, organizations must be able to embrace new technologies that will replace previous functions. They must begin to use software that automates manual operations; to be willing to standardize; and to become scalable. Instead of complex and custom solutions, providers must embrace simple, standard, and scalable offers. This combination will help to secure the future of the organization.
Want to speak to experts about Codit's managed services?
Contact Enza
Customer Care General Manager