Top Six Motivations for Managed Services

What's motivating you to think about managed network services? Is it cost? If so, you'll be surprised to hear that you're somewhat behind the times. A new report cites six top reasons companies turn to managed services, with cost ranking all the way down the list at number four.

According to Warren H. Williams, Vice President and Senior Program Director of IntelliCom Analytics -- a market research firm focusing on managed services, outsourcing, and other technologies -- cost was a big factor several years ago. Today's list of motivations, however, looks like this:

● Improved overall network performance
● Increased network reliability
● Increased network availability
● Reduced operations cost
● Improved network quality of service
● Reduced business risk

Cost Superseded by Convergence
Cost is still important, certainly, but Williams' research over the last three years reveals a growing shift in priorities. "The corporate network has become a strategic resource; the Internet is a vital part of marketing, investor relations, customer satisfaction, and employee access to information," he writes. "Networking complexity and security requirements have increased exponentially."

This equates to nothing less than a multi-threaded convergence. On the one hand, there's the convergence of communications capabilities, such as data, voice, and video. On the other hand, there's the convergence of the network as the platform for a multitude of business processes.

Combating Complexity
Williams envisions these issues coming together "on a single infrastructure, with the objective ... of facilitating communication between man-to-man, man-to-machine, and machine-to-machine regardless of the endpoint." The end result? A flexible infrastructure that can support changing business conditions. Coupled with this capability, however, he says, is an "ever-increasing complexity, increased performance and reliability expectations, and increased costs for skilled personnel and management platforms."

Thus, the shift in motivation from cost reduction to network performance improvement. When considering managed services, then, you should look at the widest set of advantages possible: not just cost reduction, or the avoidance of high-priced personnel, but the advantage that comes from the ability to bring more flexibility and agility to your business.

Managed Security Services Growing Among SMBs

A new report from Forrester Research on the state of IT security at small to midsize businesses (SMB) in North America and Europe predicts ongoing growth in the managed security space.

In a result similar to that of enterprise respondents, SMB executives reported that the two top drivers for using managed security services is the demand for a specialized skill set that security requires (cited by 31% of the respondents) and the need to reduce costs (cited by 24%).

Other reasons cited for adopting managed security services include:

• The need to reduce complexity (19%)
• The need for 24/7 security coverage (19%)
• The rest of the IT environment is outsourced (5%)
  

Managed Services Tops for Filtering and Monitoring
The report also revealed that the top two services SMBs ask from their managed security provider are e-mail or Web content filtering (36%) and network firewall monitoring (33%). Forrester believes that the biggest uptick in the next year, however, will come from increased use of vulnerability management and assessment. Some 20% of SMBs plan to deploy these services in the next twelve months.

The Forrester report clearly shows that SMBs have a strong interest in all facets of managed security services. Some 23% are already using it for identity and access management, and another 35% are interested in it, but either have no plans or no budget for adding it to their slate of services.

Similar proportions of SMB executives recognize these issues: host event log monitoring or management (31% are interested but have no plans or budget); IDS/IPS monitoring or management (30%); endpoint security (34%); and regulatory compliance monitoring and assessment (31%).

When To Add Managed Services
The Forrester survey didn't tackle one of the most interesting questions from a managed services standpoint (in fairness, the focus was on security, not managed services). That is, what will it take for SMBs to start adopting the services in which they express interest, but have not yet budgeted for?

Our recommendation is to be proactive and deliberate about adding services. Don't wait for the need to arise; develop a plan to takes into account your security needs and build capabilities into both your budget and deployment plans on an incremental basis. That way, you'll enjoy the highest level of protection with a minimum amount of disruption.