Managed Services – The STG Way
by: Edward Stringfellow
It’s time to stop building your own power plants. Obviously, I’m kidding (unless you really build power plants, in which case I hope they are environmentally friendly). Over the last several years we have seen amazing advances in what technology can provide our businesses and what it enables our team members to accomplish. Along the way there have been some subtle shifts in how technology needs to be managed and supported.
It used to be that each company had several choices to make regarding networking, applications, and how it was all setup. Today, it’s pretty much all the same from an infrastructure standpoint. I’m sure some reading this will say, “no way, our stuff is really complicated”, but even then I’m pretty sure it’s not that different from any other IP-based network out there, with the standard productivity applications being delivered to the user workstations.
This brings me to my point, which is, since the standardization of most major [technology] infrastructure components has occurred there is no longer a need for in-house management and support for it. I’m not talking about your software developers, TPS report writers, and the like; I’m talking about “the IT guy”. It’s simply no longer cost-effective or advantageous to have this function be performed in-house.
I bet you outsource some or all of your accounting, legal, building maintenance, human resources, and other critical functions of your business. While these are all important, I see time and time again where IT is left in-house and it causes an organization to fall behind. It may be in the imperceptible loss of productivity as the email is down once a month, or the very real complete loss of data after a disaster. Either way, it affects the bottom line and it’s completely avoidable.
I’m certainly not against technology folks; we are a company full of them! My point is that businesses should not continue to staff and support their own internal infrastructure unless there are very compelling reasons for doing so. We have built a company based on strong relationships with our Clients and provide them with enterprise level support, scalability, reliability, at a cost that is typically 30% less than their current spend. My goal is to educate businesses on the new options and models out there for running their technology infrastructure. Please contact me today if you are interested in learning more about how our services may be able to positively impact your business.
