Managed IT services are essential for the modern organization. As your pace of digital transformation accelerates, your IT infrastructure will grow in both breadth and complexity. It takes a highly skilled team that has expertise in managing complex environments to provide the proactive support model necessary to stay ahead of the demands of the modern workplace.
According to CIO, “Process improvement involves the business practice of identifying, analyzing and improving existing business processes to optimize performance, meet best practice standards or simply improve quality and the user experience for customers and end-users.” In this week’s White Board Wednesday episode, Mike and Brian are discussing the impact that process improvement can have, regardless if the service is done in-house or outsourced.
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Mike Cromwell
And let’s talk about a couple other areas, process improvement, we talked about that prior episodes. How do you, as you go through the sales conversation, whether it’s insource or outsource, how do you quantify how much of an impact process improvement, efficiency improvement is going to have on a business?
Brian DeVault
So you can tell pretty early on how much process is defined and how much it’s formalized within an organization. When you’re talking, you’re talking through things like how do you handle, end user onboarding and off boarding?
Brian DeVault
How do you manage or maintain your electronic systems, use policies, know all of those types of questions? What you’re really talking about, are IT best practices? Right. And so you can tell pretty early on if an organization has a pretty well-developed ecosystem of of process and procedure, we know when we bring in best practices, we can immediately see process improvement just because we do it so many times per day over and over in so many different environments.
Brian DeVault
So, I mean, from a best practices perspective, we can immediately bring processes to the table. IT processes to the table that are proven and have been refined over a number of years versus organizations essentially having to create them on their own.
Mike Cromwell
In the next area I want to talk about it as a best in class systems and tools, because how often doing going through that insource versus outsource discussion, do you find that the tools they’re currently using today are either not in place at all or they’re the wrong tools or a few generations old that are actually creating inefficiencies and have gaps?
Brian DeVault
So, yeah, a lot of times you have organizations that have software tools, management systems in place that don’t fit their needs and they probably fit their needs five years ago. But it’s too much responsibility for them to go yank that out and put what they need in, or it’s too much of a burden on the existing operational staff because they’re too busy fixing printers and, and creating user accounts and all these other things.
Brian DeVault
So it just becomes a very low priority and it never gets managed. Whereas when you have an MSP that can bring in a proven set of tools that they’re using to manage thousands of assets per day, you really start to get the best of breed solutions at a fraction of the cost. Right, because you’re not having to go out and license it yourself. You’re not deploying internal servers and infrastructure to support it. It’s all done as a service on a per asset subscription model. And so, you get the best of both worlds.
NETRIO Provides Process Improvement
When NETRIO begins working with a new partner, we can tell early on how much their process is defined and how much it’s formalized within an organization. When you begin the conversation, you’re talking through things like end-user onboarding and off-boarding,managing or maintaining your electronic systems, use policies, etc. In the beginning stages, we are able to get a good understanding if best practices are being utilized. If an organization does not have a well-developed ecosystem of process and procedure, we know when we bring in best practices, we can immediately see process improvement.
Improving Systems and Tools
Technology is a great tool, however, if a company is not using the most up-to-date software, it may be hindering the process more than it is helping. Systems and tools play a vital role in process improvement. Oftentimes there are organizations that have software tools and management systems in place that don’t fit their needs because they are outdated. However, in many cases, it is too much of a time commitment for the company to update its systems and processes, so it becomes a very low priority.
Whereas, when you have an MSP that can bring in a proven set of tools that they’re using to manage thousands of assets per day, you really start to get the best of breed solutions at a fraction of the cost. When you don’t need to license it yourself and deploy internal servers and infrastructure to support it, it becomes a high priority and is able to be effectively managed.
Changing and updating processes is not an easy task. Without a structured approach to process improvement, it can be something that continually takes a backseat in your organization. NETRIO can help identify an existing process, analyze its effectiveness, and come up with solutions to best meet the customer’s needs.
NETRIO is laser-focused on being the best partner who enables the growth of your business. This blog post is part of NETRIO’s weekly Whiteboard Wednesday series. Follow along on Linkedin and YouTube each week as Brian and Mike discuss use cases, new technology, and trends.
