IT systems are critical business enablers in any industry, yet the ability to procure and maintain a competitive infrastructure is becoming increasingly difficult for many enterprise organizations due to budget and resource constraints. Savvy service providers are stepping up to the plate to offer their expertise in the form of managed services, but it can be difficult to know if and when it makes sense to outsource enterprise IT functions. Here are a few scenarios where managed services can help:

• You need to roll out a new initiative and you lack in-house expertise – Maybe you’re getting ready to launch a big data initiative, or you want to build a flexible network that can quickly adapt to support new applications and services. You know what you need, but your team doesn’t have the time or expertise to get you there, and it costs a fortune to hire and train new staff.
• Your business is growing quickly, and you need to support branch offices – Whether your business is expanding due to organic growth or acquisition, it’s critical that every office has access to the same scalable, high-performance network services to facilitate communication. But it can be a challenge to manage an array of different networks, powered by service providers with varying network services.
• Your IT systems have become unwieldy to manage – With multiple offices and increasing demands on your IT staff, your team is spending more time putting out fires than focusing on strategic business initiatives. At the same time, technology is evolving rapidly, and it’s time-consuming and tedious to keep required software and hardware up-to-date. You need to free up your team, and streamline your operational costs.

If any of the above scenarios describe your situation, it may be time to investigate your options. With managed services, your organization can gain access to IT services and technologies that are managed and maintained by a qualified team of professionals – without having to make a capital outlay, or hire and train staff. This can provide a cost-effective way to supplement your IT resources so you can free up employees to focus on activities with the highest strategic value, and allows you to better predict operational costs.