The standard business terminology defines managed services as managing information technology for other companies via the Internet. And, managed services includes remote network, desktop and security monitoring, patch management, and remote data back-up as well as technical assistance. Most of these services are provided on a monthly basis. Managed services have gained importance over the last few years owing to increased reliance on IT, and focus on uptime of IT assets and assurance. More and more organizations are looking at outsourcing IT to managed services providers, the extent of outsourcing varying between organizations. Market players predict large scale outsourcing over the next five years.

In India, there has been a gradual acceptance of these services, and not because of cost alone. The benefits of dealing with a specialist organization with a skeletal IT staff, maintaining service level agreements with the business, and also improving overall service levels are genuine reasons why companies going in for this.

CIOs can expect a smooth transition of services to an MSP. The balance sheets can be made cleaner by moving IT assets to the MSP. People can be transferred from the IT division to the MSP, which would enhance the morale of the team, besides reducing the overall cost of IT operations. There will be transformational initiatives to take care of new projects and requirements. The most important expectation of a CIO will be a predetermined accountability for SLA management.

An MSP brings in the required focus, depth and breadth of technical skills, best practices, and the scale required to support the business expansion. MSPs help move the context from "people dependent support" to a more robust and scalable "process driven support". As the Indian enterprises scale their business to address the domestic opportunities and the global challenges, MSPs allow the enterprises to focus on their core business.

A Big Opportunity
With most enterprises increasingly looking toward service providers to manage connectivity, voice, security, and other Internet protocol services, the managed services market is expected to reach $41.5 bn by 2009, according to a study by Ovum, an analyst and consulting company.

Technology resellers and solution providers hoping to profit from the trend should shift their focus on specialized solutions targeted at existing customers, and specific industries and markets. Most agree that customers are not necessarily interested in the cheapest offering, instead they are keen on the quality of service, and whether its a service that takes care of customers business needs.

For Indian enterprises, the bigger challenge will be to get the alignment right between business and IT. Latest reports from analysts like IDC and Forrester clearly point out the importance of ensuring that IT and business strategy have to be very closely aligned.

Market players believe that 2007-08 will see a lot more momentum in the managed services segment, particularly in the Remote Infrastructure Management space, as more and more enterprises are looking to outsourcing IT operations based on clear SLAs, and not just on a resource based model.

Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in

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