Growing stakeholder value through the strategic use of managed services

Every organization seeks to increase stakeholder value.  Such value carries tangible and intangible benefits, ranging from net profit or cash flow to employee morale and customer satisfaction. Those seeking to create an increase in stakeholder value must do so by first undergoing a series of conscious decisions. One increasingly common method of creating stakeholder value is through managed services.

The market for managed services is big and getting bigger. Canalys estimates “managed services revenue in the channel will grow at least 12% in 2024, driven by customer demand for cybersecurity management, cloud infrastructure, application development, AI solution consulting and compliance requirements (among other things.) Gartner is slightly more bullish, calling for 14% growth, and predicting that “Spending on data privacy and cloud security are projected to record the highest growth rates in 2024, with each segment increasing more than 24% year-over-year.”

In September 2023, Cisco reported that “managed services are poised for robust growth in 2023, with a new forecast predicting global expansion of 12.7 percent, up from $419 billion in 2022.” For the US market, Cisco stated, “North America will see growth of between 10-12% from $190.6 billion."

One of the obvious reasons organizations turn to managed services is to tap into the expertise of firms with a deep bench of network or cybersecurity specialists. This is in response to the challenges presented by an ongoing worldwide shortage of skilled IT knowledge workers across all industries and organizations. As the MIT Technology Review reports, “The IT staffing shortages brought on by COVID-19 and the Great Resignation are still affecting companies today. In a poll of global tech leaders conducted by MIT Technology Review Insights, 64% of respondents say candidates for their IT and tech jobs lack necessary skills or experience. Another 56% cite an overall shortage of candidates as a concern.” 

As networking technology becomes more complex, skills gaps within IT departments continue to grow. In that vein, organizations are particularly interested in accessing managed services to answer the challenge of a shortage of skilled cybersecurity staffers.  Managed services can immediately increase the technology expertise and support available to an organization.

Another reason organizations may seek out managed services is to change the way they account for IT spending. Shifting from using CapEx funds to OpEX funding has obvious benefits. CEOs, CFOs and CIOs alike can see the advantages gained in greater predictability in budgeting, no depreciation costs, and less risk of compliance issues. 

Cost reduction, in general, is another driving force behind the increasing use of managed services. In addition to defraying the cost of human resources, organizations of all sizes can gain efficiency with a partner that can function as a single point of contact for installation, billing support and equipment maintenance.

It’s no secret that outsourcing all or most of your IT can dramatically reduce your internal IT costs, improve efficiency across your organization, and enhance your cyber security positioning. That’s the basic take on managed services. But there are strategic advantages that can be realized, which can help drive stakeholder value in your organization — regardless of how you choose to measure that metric. 

A more strategic set of managed services

Increasingly,  IT leaders are looking to create a strategic advantage and drive stakeholder value by partnering with leading managed service providers. Leading providers agree, as Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO, Cisco Systems told CRN, “As market conditions continue to evolve and customers continue to demand more from their technology investments, managed services will be key in helping them reduce operational costs and increase business value, while providing flexibility, predictability, and a larger ROI.”

Most internal IT staff spend their time deploying new tools and applications, migrating workloads to the cloud, and updating or replacing legacy technologies. IT staffers are also required to fulfill daily tasks involving maintenance, optimization, upgrades and patches. Organizations looking to deploy their internal staff more strategically can shift those mundane tasks to managed service providers so that their internal IT teams can focus on initiatives that can grow the business and increase stakeholder value.

PwC reports that “Top-performing organizations are turning to a more strategic set of managed services partnerships (MSPs) to access talent and technology, with the goal of not only reducing costs but becoming faster and more innovative. As the need to transform accelerates, organizations adopting this approach are developing a competitive edge that will be hard to beat.”

That analyst firm explains, “Companies using managed services in a mature way free up time for people to work on activities that deliver higher value, increasing their odds of arriving at the outcomes that matter — and improving their ability to sustain them.” Among outcomes that matter, and drive stakeholder value, is the increased flexibility of internal IT staff to move more quickly to capitalize on new opportunities. 

PwC made those statements when reviewing the findings of their survey that had 2,000 respondents from top-performing organizations. Their survey found that “The highest performers in our research are 4.2 times more likely to use MSPs for strategic advantage…Further, companies that use MSPs for strategic advantage are 1.6 times and 2.4 times more likely to be faster to market and more innovative, respectively, than those focused solely on cost savings.”

While cost reduction is still an important consideration, the PwC findings indicate that today’s leading companies are using managed services in a way that can increase shareholder value across the organization. The firm found that these organizations “… work with their managed services partners to close capability gaps and support strategic advantage in areas ranging from compliance and upskilling workers to gaining access to external data and innovating customer experiences, among others.” 

Spectrum Enterprise can help

Our end-to-end managed services provide the design expertise, implementation and ongoing support businesses need to fulfill their transformation and growth initiatives. We provide managed security services designed to reduce the day-to-day burden of your networking tasks by providing fully managed and maintained security capabilities. Our expert technicians provide professional installation with inside wire services and will even handle all the software updates and install the latest security patches, so you can focus on your business. With national reach, our private fiber network can deliver 100 Gbps speeds and is backed by a service-level agreement (SLA) that guarantees 100% uptime. These features are seamlessly integrated into our security, managed services, TV and voice solutions.

Our managed network services include Managed Network Edge to help protect your network perimeter utilizing Cisco Meraki’s cloud-managed multidimensional threat protection technology. Spectrum Enterprise is a Cisco Gold Partner. Because Gold Partners must meet stringent technical, support, and product specialization standards, at the highest level of proficiency, it signals that we deeply understand Cisco technology and will provide a reliable, superior managed services experience.

Find out why 83% of Fortune 500 companies rely on Spectrum Enterprise for technology solutions.