Targeting Integrated Services as a service offering - an obvious progression in Managed Services

In new Operating models, there’s an enhanced focus on ‘Integrated Services’. Providing Integrated services is extremely challenging for any vendor. It requires bringing technology, operations and Infrastructure together to provide entire suite of services to the serviced organization on their business landscape.  

 

A large service provider can bring in different lines of service offerings and provide these services to the customer. In fact penetration in other areas of the business is an obvious move for any vendor who is already present in the customer landscape.

 

Usually the IT Service providers are too siloed within their organization itself. The verticals and the horizontals are segregated to provide independent services and have an inclination to increase their share of business. As a result, the concept of integrated services gets limited to these divisions coming together to provide respective services offered by them to the serviced organization. Hence the integration usually remains at the service offering levels but lacks collaboration at the function level.

 

Listed below are some of the challenges that need attention while considering Integrated service offerings:

 

·         Knowledge of the entire landscape – do you have that access?

Knowing the landscape end-to-end is the key to offering integrated services. This involves the discovery exercise – knowing business processes, mapping these to the application landscape, understanding the metadata and then penetrating into the underlying infrastructure and networking layer. Understanding this mesh is critical to knowing the areas of operation and then proposing Integrated Services.

·         Do you understand the gamut of services required and the ones that you can provide?

It is very important to understand where you fit, where you can offer the required services in this cluster. It is not about the offerings you have in these areas but knowing where you can excel the existing service provider and what is the underlying principle of your claim for excellence. The key here is to find that differentiating factor and the value add that you can bring with this change.

·         Have you analyzed the criticality and risks associated to the business with the change?

Many a times it is better to have a third eye in few segments of the processing cycle. For instance, you may consciously want to reconsider keeping the development services and the relevant testing services with the same service provider? This is probably one area where competition and disintegration may actually help the serviced organization reduce the risk for themselves and the service provider.

·         Have you accounted for the elevated customer expectation that will come along with the integrated services?

Increased productivity gains, improved efficiency, multiple value-adds, increased responsibility with expanded managed services and reduction in the cost are some of the areas where the customer expectations will rise and hence they have to be accounted in the proposal while targeting integrated service offerings.

 

The expanding need for the managed services model that brings cost efficiency, lesser overload, reduced pressure on governance, will increase the need and temptation for integrated service offering. Besides the benefits, it is equally important to honestly consider the preparedness and the risks associated with your proposal of offering Integrated service.

Are you really ready and capable of offering the services at much better levels?