Cloud-managed services, usually offered by Managed Services Providers, provide partial or complete management of a customer's cloud resources or infrastructure. Responsibilities of this service could include migration, configuration, optimization, security, and ongoing maintenance. Many businesses find it useful to map a cloud journey with their Managed Services Provider to ensure they meet business objectives.
Businesses that have a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product partner with a Managed Services Providers (MSP) to enable their development and IT teams to focus on the vital aspect of their jobs which entails planning and building new functionality for the business' core applications. This partnership with an MSP allows these SaaS companies to evolve their offering and release new features with ease and quality, which moves the needle for the growth of their organization. MSPs work to care for and maintain the production environment enabling the customer's development and IT teams to focus on delivering to the business.
Other companies just breaking into a SaaS operating model require a company like Coretek (an Azure Expert MSP) to help them understand how to build a cloud-native application that ensures the best security, scalability, and governance practices. Many Managed Services Providers also consult to help determine proper pricing, selling, and data retention requirements for their new solution.
Hiring cloud resources can be costly, and then a business is confined to a single employee's time and skillset. Then, when a company adds the cost of the right tools for managing an environment, it piles on additional expenses to operations. The right MSP provides access to a deep bench of certified resources with areas of specific expertise to guide your business on the best technology journey possible. The best MSPs also provide enterprise-grade tools to manage the environment properly.
As an Azure Expert MSP, Coretek ensures customers experience our partnership as a direct extension of their IT team and business. Like other great MSPs in the industry, when we partner with a customer, they are assigned a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM). This person is the critical point of contact that learns and knows all a customer's business functions. They are liaisons between the customer and the Coretek service delivery team ensuring a great experience. Coretek's Managed Services customers also benefit from using the Coretek Insights platform that provides transparency into their Azure and Modern Work environments. Learn more about Insights here.
Technology is the foundation for implementing every product and service across an organization. Successful organizations are moving to and modernizing in the cloud to stay ahead of the competition. When IT teams need to focus on business goals and outcomes, Managed Service Providers can work as an extension of their team to provide enterprise-wide insight into app and service performance, enabling proactive assessment of performance issues before they impact customers. And just as with SaaS companies, many businesses spanning industries like Healthcare, Retail, Manufacturing, and Energy have turned to automation of development processes and streamlined approaches to testing, which reduces the app/dev lifecycle and improves time to market for new products and services—generating real business value and freeing up the IT department to be more strategic.
Fast and secure is critical for companies on the move. Whether acquiring, divesting, or merging, getting resources onboarded quickly and securely is vital to a successful M&A strategy. While carving out a business unit as a part of a divestiture, An MSP can help by building new cloud Landing Zones and supporting the business unit within the new environment. Since many organizations do not know where to begin with a division or merger of another business' digital assets, applications, users, and other IT and security tools and processes—highly-skilled managed services partners are vital to the successful execution required for the completion of assessments and recommendations on where to begin. These Managed Services providers understand the technical complexity of mergers and acquisitions and can work with your business to ensure a smooth transition.
Can you relate to these business problems? If so, cloud-managed services may be the answer.
Look at where the service provider ranks in the industry relative to its competition. Read what analysts write about them and look for independent reviews and ask to speak to existing clients.
Ask about availability and performance metrics. When and how long are the scheduled maintenance windows? Is performance backed by an SLA?
What is their standard agreement? What’s included, and more importantly, what isn’t? Does the SLA come with financial implications for the MSP if they fail to meet the KPIs behind the SLA? Does the agreement align with your business model? Is there an option to upgrade or downgrade the SLA, and if so, what are the cost implications?
A great Managed Service Provider will build security into their solution. Schedule a technical meeting between your security team and their technical experts. Make sure they explain the technical side of security practice and their physical and ethical security standards. Ensure they meet or exceed your business, security, and audit compliance requirements.
Before beginning discussions with a service provider, define the business problems you are trying to solve by implementing managed cloud services. And let those goals be the guide to selecting a provider that is well-aligned with your business priorities and cloud adoption journey.
Coretek is a Managed Service Provider, and we offer a broad set of services to enhance your IT environment or build it from the ground up. As an Azure Expert MSP, our team is comprised of Microsoft-certified architects and consultants that understand the needs of businesses across industries. Some of the benefits seen by our managed services customers are:
Better Cost Control - 24% Reduction in IT infrastructure costs
Faster Return on IT Investments - an estimated 224% ROI over three years
Improved Risk Management - Continuous monitoring and build-in threat protection keeps your users and data protected
High Availability, Efficiency, & Productivity - 88% Reduction in unplanned server and network downtime
Fosters Innovation - Your team can focus on business-critical initiatives, development, and customer outcomes instead of technical issues
Future-Ready IT Services - Easily scale with the demands of your business and changing technology no matter how fast it happens
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