There are two main characteristics that make managed services an undeniably unique business arena right now: growth and pricing. First, let's focus on growth.
The managed services space has tended to grow in size and scope despite a down economy. This statement seems (statistically anyway) like conventional wisdom to those who follow this IT market segment.
Now there's more evidence to suggest the validity of that wisdom. According to this study from the Insight Research Corporation, rapid changes in telephony and network preferences of businesses coupled with consumer use of computer-scale mobile devices, will make managed services grow exponentially.
Specifically, the report says that the managed-services market will grow at 12 percent per year through 2015.
"Enterprises can no longer hire staff to keep up with technology changes that require them to adopt a new strategy, and managed services fits the bill," said Robert Rosenberg, Insight Research president, in a prepared statement accompanying the report.
Rosenberg's company predicts that the total U.S. managed services market will grow from $29 billion in 2010 to $47 billion in 2015. Further, individual segments of the managed services market, which include network support services, Web hosting and design, business continuity, application implementation and maintenance and fully outsourced IT functions, will grow 10 percent to 20 percent in that same time span.
Posted by Jabulani Leffall on March 11, 20110 comments
One can scarcely belabor the point enough: Business continuity and storage are cornerstones of managed services. Funny thing about cornerstones though. You only notice them when the whole wall has fallen, and they don't stand out unless something goes wrong.
A fairly recent need for backup and disaster recovery and business continuity came to the forefront of discussions in the tech blogosphere when Internet search giant Google confirmed that an e-mail outage left over 120,000 of its Gmail users without e-mail, contacts, labels and other content over the weekend.
For Google, it's an embarrassing hiccup but for a small and medium sized business, such an interruption could mean a sizable loss in business revenue or recovery expenses.
Robert Branch, of Branch Tech Solutions, who has a background in healthcare IT, says business continuity is key for the small businesses he serves.
"Backup and disaster recovery is a hot button for our client, the majority of them are medical practices," he said. "The deal with patient data and digital form, which can't be recreated if its ever lost so certainly there's value in having a bulletproof solution."
Either way, if there was ever a case for have it and not need it, a business continuity and/or BDR program is a good start for SMBs and a smart proposition for MSPs selling through to SMBs.
Posted by Jabulani Leffall on March 08, 20110 comments