Managed Services need to be a fundamental part of a long-term, value creating strategy.

The benefits of a Managed Services solution are clear. Reduce operating expenses. Optimize capital expenses. Get technical expertise. Control workload fluctuations. Get economies of scale. Improve performance and efficiency. Enhance service flexibility. Ease integration complexity.

Actually getting those benefits is quite another matter.  Here are some things to consider if you are contemplating a Managed Services solution.

Assess Your Current Levels of Performance
Create a fact-based, objective view of the current level of performance, the definitions for success, and the time frame for these improvements. Benchmark your current performance and get as much best practice data as possible. It is critical to have a thorough due diligence process done before embarking on any Managed Service.

Have A Defined Strategy
Be open to new ideas before creating a defined strategy detailing how the organization is going to be supported by a Managed Service solution.

For example: Civilian agencies now have a tremendous opportunity to reinvent the way they do business especially their network infrastructure according to Sprint’s Steve Parrott. “The technology today can do that. If you are moving to a solution, presume you are going to be leaning on a service provider to provide that network infrastructure.”

Parrott urged implementers to view that service provider as the “glue” with the knowledge and capabilities to build your solution. “Don’t hamstring their expertise just because you’ve historically done this yourself.”

Establish A Partnership Relationship
From the standpoint of Managed Services, there are lots of vehicles (e.g. MACs and GWACs) to buy these services.

“But once they are procured, there’s a whole other level, another phase of the relationship-building and holding the service providers accountable, said Energy’s Pete Tseronis.

“Trust, accountability, forward thinking, partnership and results; those are the ingredients for the recipe for the successful implementation of Managed Services,” said Tseronis. “That goes two ways.”

If there is sufficient up-front work to establish these principles, the legal and operational parameters of the agreement flow much more smoothly. These principles are touchstones for decisions made through the transition, and serve as a platform for the evolution of the service and relationship.

“But you can’t think I’ve given the keys over to the magic kingdom and all’s going to be well,” counseled Tseronis. SLAs: Where The Rubber Meets The Road

Dedicate time and considerable effort to establishing the principles of the deal – the Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

“The SLAs is where you build the governance in,” said Tseronis. According to Tseronis, buyers build the governance into those performance indicators that can be very, very specific.

“If my network needs to be up 99.999 percent of the time, versus 99.996 percent of the time, you have to have mechanisms to track that decimal point or two,” explained Tseronis. “That’s where trust, governance and accountability plays in on both sides. I’d be hard pressed to find a vendor that can guarantee 100 percent up time for a SLA without paying out the wazoo. So the five 9s and the four 9s is like a mortgage rate. You can go get a 3 percent mortgage today, but do you want to pay five points for that? Or six or seven points to a broker? So it’s just a negotiation tactic.”

Planning and Executing The Transition
Assign a dedicated team to the process, to provide continuity and expertise to the transition. You and your service provider should not skimp on any aspect of this phase. Start transition planning early, long before the ink on the contract is drying.

Collaboration and cooperation with your provider will produce a strong, fully understood and agreed plan. Treat the transition as a transition, where change is an anticipated daily occurrence. There may be hiccups along the way but remember to keep a steady focus on what is important – the quality of service your customers experience. Constant communication is the prime underlying factor that will drive success of the transition and during the time of the contract.

In the end it always comes down to trust Tseronis noted. “There’s accountability, discipline and consistency. There’s forward thinking for the continuous IT innovation. For that you put in the trust for the service provider to keep you current and take you into the future.”