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Welcome to The Utility View
2010.04 -
10 Questions to Ask Your (Would-be) Managed Service Provider
TUV Feature Story > Managed Services are definitely on the rise in today's businesses, growing at a predicted 28% annually. If your business is ready to make the switch, we present 10 important questions you should ask any would be provider to make sure you're signing up for TRUE managed services. Read the full story >
From Our Customers >The word “affinity” is derived from the Latin word “affinis” which means “connected with”. Affinity can be defined as: “a natural attraction of feeling or kinship” or “a relationship by marriage or common bond.” It is this bond with our customers that led us to create our own Affinity Program. Our early adopters share their thoughts. Success Story >
Tips from Technical Support > Are you accidentally bombarding your staff and your customers with unwarranted and annoying Read Receipts? There is a time and place for them and we discuss their proper use in this month's Tech Tip. Learn more > |
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10 Questions to Ask Your (Would-be) Managed Service Provider
Technology has evolved dramatically over the past 30 years to a point where today it is an integral part of our daily lives. Despite the rapid innovation in technology hardware and software, the service and support models have remained somewhat antiquated with the break-fix model – you call your IT guy when something needs to be fixed. The perception of the break/fix model is you pay for what you use; the reality is the more reliant you become on technology, the more this model costs you!
Over the past decade an emerging service model, known as managed services, has looked to address the weaknesses of the traditional IT service model and better support the 24/7 “always plugged in” business world.
This month we will provide you some tips to navigate this new way of consuming technology and support with 10 Questions to Ask Your (Would-be) MSP, providing CFO/controllers and IT managers with a checklist of key questions to ask when evaluating managed service providers.
- What is 'managed services'? Managed services is an IT service model that leverages remote monitoring and management software and processes to deliver ongoing maintenance and support proactively and remotely. The onsite service component typically includes network/desktop administration, physical hardware issues and business-technology consulting and planning.
- How do you deliver and charge for managed services? A critical aspect of managed services is the specifics around service delivery, including: % of remote remediation, call response times, who answers the phone and how “proactive” is your service. In addition, get the MSP to explain how they charge - if fixed-fee, what is included (and what’s not!) – request a copy of their Service Level Agreement. For IT managers, ask about co-managed services, which we discussed last month.
- Can you “show me” your helpdesk and network operations center? A growing trend in managed services is that the service your company is receiving from an MSP is, in fact, being outsourced to a 3rd party! Ensure the organization you are entrusting your IT (and data security) to, has the capability, employees and resources by visiting their office or taking a virtual tour like this...
- What is your approach regarding hardware and software? This question is important as it determines the complexity of your on-premise infrastructure. The more hardware and software you have, the more it costs you to maintain. Today’s leading MSPs employ a virtual IT approach (aka “cloud computing”), to reduce complexity and costs, while increasing your data security and disaster recovery capabilities.
- What % of services do you deliver remotely? This is a simple question that should be supported by actual service metrics. Generally speaking over 95% of your service incidents can be resolved remotely with the majority of these being detected proactively through network, desktop and security management tools. Managed services is mostly “unseen” by the customer, therefore monthly reporting on service metrics, IT performance and security is important.
- Can you give me 5 references of companies “just like us”? Whether you are a 30-person accounting firm or manufacturer with 200 employees, talk to some organizations your size and in your industry to understand the model, service quality and even the social engineering elements your end-users will go through in moving to managed services and working with a remote helpdesk, etc.
- What MSP accreditation or certifications do you have? Beyond technical certifications, it is important for you to understand if you are engaging an accredited MSP (i.e. the MSPAlliance). Think about it, your accountant or lawyer has limited access to your confidential corporate data, whereas the technician servicing you has 100% access!
- What is your data security policy? If your company is reliant on data, then typically you are reliant on technology and the internet. As a result, your client, personal and corporate data is vulnerable. Ask the MSP you are engaging for their privacy policy and internal processes and procedures for information security.
- Do you have a usage-based managed services option? Generally break/fix services are pay-per-use (block service), whereas most managed service engagements are fixed-fee. Ask your MSP if they have a usage-based option. This works well in situations where you are unsure of certain variables such as end-user helpdesk usage.
- IF you say you’re an MSP, why are you supporting us in the break/fix model? Today, 90% of IT service and support is delivered in the traditional break/fix model. That means adopting managed services can give you competitive advantage by making technology a key enabler for your business. What it also means, is your current provider is, more than likely, not an MSP.
Managed services is, in some respects, like insurance - your company is paying for uptime rather than downtime. It is predicted to grow at a rate of 28% annually, so now is the time for your organization to get on board…and now you have 10 questions to ask the MSP!
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It may not be the information age’s #1 pet peeve, but you know it ranks up there when there’s a Facebook Group singularly devoted to it and entitled “Don't you hate it when people put read receipts on every email?” With such comments as “I hate hate hate read receipts and always hit NO when it asks for a receipt -- why does everyone think their email is SOOOO important??” and “It's a sickness. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.” you get the impression that Read Receipts may in fact touch a collective nerve.
For those of you who don’t know or haven’t experienced it yet, read receipts are used when sending emails to inform you, as the sender, that the message you’ve sent has been both received and opened (you can also request a somewhat less intrusive delivery receipt to make sure that your email has been delivered to the destination inbox). Read receipts definitely have their time and place. They are useful when sending important documents that you need to know are delivered. And from a privacy standpoint, when you receive an email from someone who’d requested a read receipt, you have the option to let that sender know, or not, if you have actually read it. However, the recipient’s ire is raised when they are constantly hit with read receipt requests on ALL EMAILS that you send them. Usually this is simply accidental – where the sender doesn’t realize they’ve left it on or that it’s abnormal to keep it on. So this Tech Tip will serve three purposes:
- Inform you of proper Netiquette – This one is easy – simply turn off your read receipts when they aren’t necessary;
- Warn you about responding to read and delivery receipts - Spammers and aggressive salespeople often send meeting requests and emails that include read and delivery receipts. Responding to such requests and receipts does help spammers to verify your e-mail address; and
- How to turn them off if you didn’t know they are always on…
Turning off your own read receipts in Outlook is fairly straightforward:
- Go to your Tools menu and click Options.
- Click E-mail Options.
- Click Tracking Options.
- Under “For all messages that I send , request:” make sure both “Read Receipt” and “Delivery Receipt" are UNCHECKED.
- Also, while you’re there, if you want to safeguard yourself against spammers and control how you respond to requests then… Under “Use this option to decide how to respond to requests for read receipts. Only applies to Internet Mail accounts”, click “Never send a response” or “Ask me before sending a response” depending on your preference.
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