The Benefits of Moving to a Managed Service

[Kimberly Kelley (kimberly)]

Wherever you are in the world, and whatever type of organization you work for, there’s a strong possibility you could benefit from moving to a Managed Service for your video collaboration environment – through reduced risk, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), improved uptime, accelerated return on investment (ROI), the financial predictability of operating vs capital expenses (OPEX vs CAPEX), and more. A new white paper from Polycom provides a detailed overview of Managed Services.

These kinds of benefits make the business case for Managed Services compelling – especially if video collaboration within your organization has become mission critical, your collaboration solution spans multiple countries, or the complexity of your environment has increased. Misunderstandings about the nature of Managed Services and what they encompass can lead to organizations missing out on all of the advantages.

What are Managed Services?

According to industry body Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), Managed Services is “the practice of outsourcing day-to-day management responsibilities as a strategic method for improving operations.” In its simplest form, leasing a car or moving into a condo where much of the property management is addressed by a homeowners association is an example of Managed Services. Within an organization, outsourcing responsibility for your IT infrastructure is a common scenario for Managed Services.

Polycom Managed Services can help you address all of these issues, and deal with an extensive range of challenges related to business transformation, collaboration, and IT resourcing. You should seriously consider Polycom Managed Services if:

• Your IT support staff’s time is needed for other strategic initiatives.
• The demands of maintaining and supporting your video collaboration system are outside the expertise of your IT staff, or you’re struggling to find and/or keep the right technical talent to meet these demands.
• Your business is expanding its footprint globally, or you have business units demanding greater access to visual collaboration tools.
• Your organization is about to undergo a significant business transformation, IT migration, or upgrade.
• Your current infrastructure is nearing capacity, you’re unable to scale it fast enough, or you need to get a fully functioning solution envisioned, designed, and deployed in the shortest possible timeframe.
• You’re looking to add significant new video capabilities for mobile or desktop users; want to integrate Polycom video with Skype for Business; or need a trusted partner capable of managing legacy or multi-vendor video solutions and endpoints.
• Your video collaboration solution is falling behind the most recent software updates and revisions, meaning employees aren’t experiencing the latest benefits.
• Your current Managed Services provider is not meeting all your needs–for example, if you feel you are not getting the value you are paying for, you want a more proactive approach, or you want a provider who will commit to continuous improvement of your solution throughout your contract period.
• Your collaboration solution is not delivering the results you had hoped for; you want to use it for more mission-critical applications than your current solution can support; or you would like help with driving technology adoption, utilization, improving scheduling, simplifying the user experience, etc.

In addition to addressing these kinds of challenges, a move to Polycom Managed Services makes sense if:

• You want to avoid or reduce business risk and lower TCO, while keeping up-to-date with the latest technology.
• You’re looking to restructure more of your purchases as operational expenses, or replace CAPEX with OPEX projects as a way of better managing your cash flow.
• You want to address unpredictability of your IT operations– in terms of finance, performance, etc.–through a predictable, stable and reliable environment, cost model, and service level objectives (SLOs).
• You’re already outsourcing some of your other IT applications or moving them to the cloud–e.g. by switching to Microsoft Office 365–and would like to do the same for video.
• You’ve been considering outsourcing video to a public cloud provider due to the flexibility and speed of deployment available, but have concerns about security, Quality of Service (QoS), interoperability, the lack of opportunities for customization, etc.

Polycom’s approach to Managed Services is to offer a solution covering as much or as little of an organization’s collaboration environment as they require. This could include professional services, support services, licensing, training, and even product, all rolled up into a single integrated solution governed by an agreed set of success criteria, and paid for using your preferred financial model.

Polycom’s Managed Services team (often alongside one of our authorized partners) will also act as a trusted advisor, augmenting–not replacing–your existing IT resources, by supporting them in areas that are otherwise preventing them from concentrating on other strategic initiatives, or enabling them to offload tasks for which they do not possess the required level of skills or expertise.

Download our new white paper for a detailed overview of Managed Services.