Managed services describes when companies shift portions of IT, payroll, healthcare, HR and administrative services to an outside provider. Managed service providers also ensure ongoing monitoring, onboarding and problem resolution for their client’s IT system.
It is increasingly common for companies to outsource many aspects of their business, as managed services organizations can provide a level of expertise and efficiency that makes for a cost effective solution and allows organizations to focus on their core business.
But what about the core business of these managed service providers?
Managed services providers deal with numerous clients, and an enormous amount of data pertaining to each client. The speed at which providers can onboard new clients and create secure data connections has a direct impact on customer satisfaction, the bottom line and business as whole.
Traditionally, this onboarding and data mapping process would go through IT and would typically take anywhere from 15 – 17 weeks. This equates to about four months without making any revenue. Given the increasingly fast pace at which business is conducted, providers can’t afford to wait for months in order to begin servicing clients.
Understanding this, managed services providers are looking for innovative ways to streamline their onboarding processes, resulting in more satisfied customers and less lost business opportunities.
One rising trend when it comes to integration, a crucial part of any managed service provider’s business, is empowering members of sales or account teams with the tools they need to create B2B data connections themselves. This would save a huge amount of time, as each connection request wouldn’t need to be routed through IT. And this translates to more revenue, faster.
This protocol adjustment would ultimately reduce the burden on IT and result in heightened flexibility for the entire organization. Companies would also be able to scale more rapidly, and respond to business demands at a moment’s notice. In fact, transferring integration capabilities to business users can cut onboarding time significantly—from weeks and months down to days.
The bottom line: managed service providers that innovate IT practices will experience a strong competitive advantage in their ability to better serve clients, and those that fail to innovate will quickly be left behind.