Manage IT Costs Without Compromising Agility and Performance

Information technology (IT) is the engine that powers modern business. The advent of new technologies and the value they deliver has further accelerated the pace of digital transformation, placing IT at the core of the business’s success.

IT budgets have accordingly become a significant part of the enterprise’s overall expense. As an Infrastructure & Operations leader, you need to exercise considerable care to balance the spend versus the value-add that is so crucial to positive business outcomes.

On the spend side of the equation, IT budgets can include expenses around hardware, software, personnel, outsourcing, disaster recovery, and the occupancy costs associated with supporting IT in the enterprise.

On the value side of the equation, enterprises have the need to maintain agility and performance. In this context:

• Agility refers to the ability of your business to rapidly pivot the approach to IT to meet changing needs. You need to look no further than the recent pandemic to appreciate the speed with which organizations adapted to the move towards remote working.
• Performance refers to the reliable, efficient and superior operation of the network infrastructure that delivers the business services that end-users depend on to go about their daily revenue-generating activities.

Every enterprise now faces this delicate balancing act. Those organizations that do it well have a distinct competitive advantage.

IT Cost Considerations

By far, the largest component of IT spend is associated with staffing. That’s followed by the cost of developing, deploying, and operating the network infrastructure to support service delivery.

As you know, staffing and maintaining an IT department is no small task. There are significant difficulties finding and recruiting the specific kinds of skilled people needed. Then come the challenges associated with training and retention. All of this, of course, is stacked on top of the HR and other administrative costs associated with managing employees.

On the network infrastructure side, depending on the needs of the business, certain core applications may be located and maintained in-house. Increasingly the trend is to depend on an as-a-Service (XaaS) OPEX model to utilize the services that enterprises need – without incurring the large upfront CAPEX expenses associated with purchasing and setting it up by themselves.

The Advent of Managed Services

It is precisely for these reasons that enterprises turn toward Managed Network Service providers  to control costs – while retaining the business agility and infrastructure performance they need for the conduct of their business.

The entire business model of MNS providers is based on their ability to provide services by taking on the onus of managing your service delivery infrastructure. To do this effectively, their core business revolves around their ability to hire, leverage, and retain staff with the right skills and training for the job.

This enables MNS providers to bring about huge efficiencies in capital investment when it comes to technology-specific staffing costs for their customers, since the customers no longer have to do this for themselves.

The expertise MNS providers bring in managing the network infrastructure has a direct correlation to higher levels of customer satisfaction. These levels are due to the increased dependability and reliability of the service delivery supply chain from a performance perspective.

MNS providers also have the ability to keep up with advances in technology that drive digital transformation. While managing your digital transformation, MNS providers can provide increased agility in responding rapidly to tactical needs, such as having to scale up or down to deal with short-term demands.