Managed Services

Management of services is a modern practice of outsourcing everyday business operations and capacities to external providers. They provide managed services via a remote (network) access. Customers are billed on a fixed monthly subscription basis or for services consumed, as in the business model of billing for goods.

Managed services is actually a collective term for unified communications, Internet telephony and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). These applications are managed by an external provider at a central location, and users have remote access to these applications via the Internet. The operator also provides the maintenance and necessary upgrades from one location. Since this is an end-to-end solution, customers do not need to rent or develop an internal (in-house) specialized department for support of the information communication system.

These service models bring large savings in comparison to the classic provision of services, and at the same time they allow for better and faster adjustment to technological changes. It is not surprising that their popularity flourishes, especially during the economical crisis.

Typical managed services include the following:

• remote networks
• desktops
• safety
• databases,
• backups and applications
• remote technical support

This business model was developed for large corporations, but was later adjusted to meet the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.

In typical managed services, providers offer different price models according to the needs of custumers. For most of the companies, fixed monthly subscription fees are the most common and cheapest way of paying. This approach increases the transparency of IT costs and decreases risks. Thus, managed services are a way for smaller companies to outsource their IT needs to external providers. In this way, the costs are considerably lower than if the custumer opted for building and maintaining internal departments for IT support.

The main advantages for companies that decide to use managed services are as follows:

• a single IT provider; hence, one contact for all IT problems
• costs that are known in advance
• savings, as there is no need to build an in-house IT department
• transparency and predictability of costs
• total cost control 
• greater flexibility and productivity of the entire company