May 201819 MANAGED SERVICES AND THE DIGITAL REVOLUTIONS ince the early 90's, Managed Services has been associated in one form or another to the provision of outsourced IT related services. Whether fully outsourced, partially, or in a hybrid form through one of the many different types of Managed Service Providers (MSP's), the intent has generally been the same ­ the optimisation of IT budgets, to ensure the necessary technology support services are available for an organisation to achieve its business objectives.It was the economies of scale that attracted customers to leverage MSP's in adopting the latest in technology capabilities, without having to heavily invest themselves in building out their own infrastructure, not to mention maintaining a complex set of evolving skills often unrelated to their core business. As a result, highly customised Managed Service offerings allowed end users to clearly define the level of services required, qualifying the cost, and "locking in" the benefit of each specific element of that service.Today, with the rapid development of cloud based platforms and solutions, and with organisations themselves adopting both digitisation and digitalisation strategies, we are seeing a blurring of lines between services offered and value delivered. Transformation is taking place at the heart of many companies, right at the very core of their value offering. Whilst many firms talk of digital transformation ­ the role of technology is very much as an enabler, allowing organisations to learn and adapt more quickly and easily to changes in their competitive environments. This revolution has fundamentally changed the technology requirements of their organisation, and so too impacted the corresponding offerings from Managed and Cloud Service providers.BY ADRIAN BEER, SENIOR VP, ABBAdrian BeerCXO NSIGHTS
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