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The Tech Break

Refocus IT with Managed Support Services

May 25, 2016 / by Bird Rock Blogger

We have all seen an increase in IT services being outsourced. The exact metric on adoption and market size is hard to come by because the definition of IT Managed Services is not clear. Nonetheless top IT management have become more accustomed to the idea of Managed Service Providers and in some obscure surveys, 90% of individuals were either familiar or somewhat familiar with what Managed Service Providers actually do.

The point I am trying to make here is that outsourcing IT has become very popular and has gained its popularity for many reasons. Before I go into the reasons on why there has been an increase in companies utilizing external IT support, I want to clarify some baggage when using the word “outsourcing.”

Typically, when we hear outsourcing we think of a synonym such as “replacement.” Outsource your call center on foreign soil so you can save money on what would be domestic labor costs. Outsource your manufacturing to China so you can get your products cheaper. In all instances, this means giving someone’s job in your company to somebody else outside of your organization. In regards to outsourcing IT Managed Services this is NOT the case. Managed Services align extremely well with your current team and allow them to perform their jobs better in many ways. Here are reasons why Managed Services have grown in popularity.

Reasons for Managed Services Popularity/Growth

  • Help remove cumbersome every day operational IT tasks from team
  • Refocus individuals skills/talents for critical IT/business objectives
  • Utilize hundreds of certifications, skillsets, and experience not present on current team
  • 24/7/365 management of network, storage, virtualization, and cloud computing
  • Tier 1, 2, & 3 Break-Fix that does not require team to drop everything
  • Decreases in downtime and in increases in productivity
  • Cost effectiveness
  • Ensure network, storage, virtualization, and cloud computing performance
  • Increase efficiency and become more competitive

These are just some of the many reasons why large and small organizations are using Managed Service Providers to support some of their IT operations.

Bird Rock Systems has been offering Advanced Professional Services like installation, consulting, assessments, troubleshooting, and infrastructure design for many years. We have been extremely successful in providing these services to make our customer’s IT better. Bird Rock Systems offers a complete 24/7/365 Managed Support Service for networking, storage, virtualization, and cloud computing. We have been looking at the MSP market for years and we needed to provide a service that made complete sense for the customer. Just like all MSP’s we have a discovery phase which is followed by necessary remediation, an onboarding phase, actual 24/7/365 Operation and a final phase of Optimization which is reoccurring monthly. Our two main differentiators happen in the Discovery Phase and Optimization Phase.

During Discovery we will create a Runbook, which is essentially a checklist of efficient steps to take in order to remediate or troubleshoot a problem. This is a living reference of procedures that the customer or remote support can carry out. It helps determine likely causes of various issues for quick remediation allowing for effective systems management. The Runbook is sort of like a trouble shooting checklist that was formed and based on the ITIL framework.

Our next differentiator is the Root Cause Analysis. This service happens monthly or quarterly (customer preference) and is a part of the Optimization Phase. Each month we will review logs from devices and review support tickets and all phone-home data sent to the manufacturer. We will make sure we understand the customer’s perspective and upcoming business initiatives that IT can/will influence. We will create a report and based off that report we will discuss the appropriate methods to align IT with business goals. Finally, we will update the Runbook so all trouble shooting checklists are current and effective.

The reason we find our Runbook and Root Cause Analysis as differentiators is due to our team of engineers who hold over 30 years of experience on the Partner/Vendor side of IT as well as the Enterprise side of IT. They have 100s of certifications and specialized skills that allow them to fully understand what is going on, build out reports, provide recommendations, and list top priorities which takes out the guess work for our customers.

Our 24/7/365 Managed Support Service is just another forward step Bird Rock is taking to make sure we are Making IT Better!

To understand how you, your IT team, and business as a whole can benefit from Managed Support Services give Bird Rock Systems a call at 858-866-9702 or email at mhannula@birdrockusa.com.

 

Making IT Better

Bird Rock Blogger

Written by Bird Rock Blogger

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