Managed IT services growing, but need to be taken more seriously

The organisation believes that outsourced IT services are set to increase significantly over the next five years. However its report, entitled ‘Managed Services’, confirms that although many organisations have developed sourcing strategies, they lack the discipline of managing third-party relationships. “Commitment is required from all levels to make the managed services model work, and if there is no in-house management team, customers are putting their organisations at risk,” says Maxine Holt, senior researcher at analyst Butler Group and co-author of the report. “The management of a managed services agreement should not be left to chance. Organisations must understand that they need to commit time, effort and money to looking after these contracts and this is usually undertaken by having an in-house management team.” She suggests that more organisations are today making intelligent sourcing decisions – for example, procuring discrete services as part of an overall sourcing strategy. The benefits then are increased business and financial flexibility. Beyond that, she says that Butler Group is seeing an increasing number of organisations not only using outsourcing to complement services delivered in-house, but also implementing a ‘multi-sourced model’ – a number of different providers delivering different IT requirements. “The benefit of increased business and financial flexibility, through the reduced need to commit to a long period of involvement with a single supplier, can make the proposition attractive to SMEs and larger organisations alike,” says Holt. “However, customers need to retain control of their managed services contracts through the provision of an in-house management team.”