The terms managed service and outsourced service are often used interchangeably to describe services that a company may procure from a third party in order to help boost its operational efficiency. Yet these two types of services aren’t alike at all in the roles that they play for client companies.
Although people tend to use the term ‘outsourcing’ to loosely define outside services, it’s important to be clear that the functions of a managed service team and those of the average business process outsourcing provider are vastly different. In this way, your company can choose the right service for the specific goals you have in mind.
You may be in the process of wanting to realign your company’s productivity with its current growth rate. Unfortunately, work is stacking up too quickly, with a limited staff constantly trying to catch up to meet productivity goals. In addition to this challenge, you find that your current office or IT equipment is just not performing efficiently enough to meet the demands of your growing business. It becomes time for you to take measures in getting the expertise of a third party to smoothen out the process flow for your company. Which type of service do you choose? A managed service or your standard BPO service?
Your company’s specific goals are important in determining which type of service you actually need. If you find that your productivity is only being affected by non-IT related issues such as data entry, document scanning, or other day-to-day administrative tasks that can be solved by having a qualified team dedicated to the sorting and completion of such work, then a regular outsource provider will do the job easily enough by providing you with manpower and adequate facilities to do the work. Any decisions regarding strategic planning for optimal productivity, however, will still have to be decided by you.
Managed services, on the other hand, will provide more than just manpower and facilities. If what you need is an IT overhaul to analyze the issues that are slowing down your company’s productivity and gear decisions toward that end, then what you are actually looking for is the analytical and decision-making expertise of a management consulting team.
A managed services team will provide a more holistic approach to resolving technology issues. For example, you have invested in an ERP system to boost your operational productivity; yet most of your workers still aren’t utilizing most of the system’s benefits. They still choose to work with older methods such as Excel spreadsheets or even manual methods that your ERP was meant to replace. A managed service team will get to the bottomline of this issue by finding out why this is so, and what can be done to address the issues.
Management consulting teams will apply methods such as change management and knowledge management to come up with the best IT solutions. These types of operations management involve making changes in your organizational structures and use of technology where necessary. Management consultants create feedback databases to give the employees involved in particular projects the ability to share their valuable feedback, for solutions that can work to support the necessary changes within the company. They develop research files for market niches and trends that your company can enter for further growth. Ultimately, the goal of managed services is to help employees transition to new organizational structures and technology usage for optimal productivity, resulting in a company that can keep up with its growth rate.
As you may have seen from reading this, managed services is a more proactive approach that requires technical, analytical and decision-making expertise, while outsourced services are simply services that do the specific job you require, with no decision-making involved on the part of the provider.
Most outsourced providers will come in the guise of managed services; which means you must be wary of this. Proper research on your outsource provider’s background and expertise is a must. At Ezy Outsourcing Hub, we deliver not just your average outsourced services. We are a team of specialized management consultants who have supported businesses in innovative end-to-end solutions through the years… and we have a portfolio of successful and satisfied clients to show for it. Whether you want simple outsourced services or complex IT solutions that require management expertise, we can deliver it for you. Contact us today for reliable advice.
