What are the advantages of hiring a professional services group that works with many different providers?
Most large enterprise customers deal with multiple carriers who each in turn have multiple products that they are delivering to the customer. Having one organization with ties to all those carriers and products is like having a universal account team. Any life cycle management changes or billing disputes can be pushed to a single source even if multiple carriers are involved.
In today’s environment there is not one carrier that can meet all of your needs and still give you competitive rates. They all have their ‘sweet spot’ products, and defined footprint geographically in the U.S. and/or abroad. If you are able to leverage multiple providers, you will get the best of breed of each product at the most competitive price. Combining that with a pro services company makes it seamless to the customer. It’s a win-win scenario.
Carriers today are increasing their product portfolio to meet the growing trends and new technologies within the telecom industry. For example, one of these trends is putting more of what usually resides at a customer’s corporate site into the carrier’s network (the cloud). A professional services company can help identify products from carriers that best meet the customer’s needs.
Why push IT/telecom to the cloud?
Today, most customers buy the hardware, maintenance, operating systems and applications needed for their users. Then they are trapped in the cycle of purchasing new equipment when improved hardware or newer application upgrades are available. Now we have the ability to actually push some or all of this into the cloud. Carriers are offering products to manage all hardware for a fixed monthly price, meaning no capital outlay for large hardware purchases. They can also manage a customer’s environment down to the application level. These products can be complicated; this is where a professional services company can assist by identifying what products and services are best for a customer’s current and future needs.
With all the options, how can companies decide what is best for them?
Sometimes, companies do not know how to incorporate change and bring new technologies or products into their environment. A professional services organization can take the time to understand their workflow, their applications, and where the people using these applications reside. If your employees all sit in one building, it might not be the smartest idea to push everything to the network, but if they are all over the country, it might be. We look at the applications, how they flow, which ones are more critical than others and help with design, implementation and protecting against network outages. When we add in deep dive analytics that include the financial aspect of each option, we can provide cost-effective solutions that meet the enterprise’s short- and long-term needs and goals.
Jon Marley is director of Technical Solutions with Simplify Inc. Reach him at [email protected].
