The IT landscape has undergone a seismic shift in recent years with the emergence of new technologies, work models, and customer expectations. This poses a critical question for many businesses today: Is outsourcing IT support to a managed service provider still a smart move in 2024?
IT support as a service (ITSaaS) offers the promise of greater efficiency, scalability, and cost savings compared to traditional in-house IT models. However, successfully leveraging these benefits depends on a careful evaluation of current IT support needs and finding the right managed services partner.
This blog will take an in-depth look at the key factors shaping the ITSaaS landscape in 2024 to help readers determine if it still presents a worthwhile investment for their business. We’ll examine the latest ITSaaS trends, weigh the potential advantages and challenges, and provide tips for selecting a provider that can deliver maximum value. Let's dive in!
Current Trends Shaping ITSaaS in 2024
Several pivotal developments are impacting the delivery of IT support services as we look towards 2024 and beyond:
The Remote Work Revolution
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a dramatic expansion of remote work. While this trend will taper off somewhat post-pandemic, hybrid work models are here to stay. This requires more robust, flexible IT support solutions for the distributed workforce. ITSaaS providers are primed to deliver seamless support across decentralized environments.
The Rise of Automation
Advances in AI and automation are transforming basic IT support tasks like level-1 troubleshooting and password resets. IT support as a service providers are increasingly integrating intelligent automation to resolve more routine tickets faster and devote staff resources to higher-value tasks.
Everything as a Service
The XaaS model has exploded in recent years, with companies increasingly procuring technology as a subscription-based managed service rather than owning and managing systems themselves. IT departments are under pressure to provide flexible, consumption-based IT services aligned with business needs. ITSaaS delivers IT support in a modular, on-demand manner.
Demand for Security
With data breaches saturating headlines, security now trumps all other IT priorities. Managed service providers must demonstrate stringent security postures, protocols, and compliance to earn business trust. Advanced ITSaaS providers offer security-as-a-service options such as SIEM, firewall management, and threat monitoring.
The Cloud Imperative
Cloud platforms are dominating IT budgets, spurred by their scalability, affordability, speed-to-deployment, and administration. Leading ITSaaS providers offer comprehensive support across popular cloud platforms and migration assistance. They are also leveraging cloud-based tools to deliver support more efficiently.
Advantages of ITSaaS in 2024
In today's fast-changing business climate, IT Support as a Service offers a very compelling value proposition for companies with its multitude of benefits:
Cost Savings
The cost efficiency of ITSaaS remains one of its most powerful draws for businesses. Outsourcing IT support to a managed services provider can yield substantial cost reductions in the following areas:
- Eliminates Large Upfront Capital Expenditures: With ITSaaS, businesses avoid huge upfront investments required for in-house support infrastructure, tools, and skilled IT staff. The pay-as-you-go model means companies pay only for the specific support resources utilized.
- Consolidates Vendor Relationships: Instead of managing relationships with multiple niche technology vendors, ITSaaS consolidates support under a single provider. This shrinks procurement and contract management overhead.
- Leverages Economies of Scale: MSPs gain advantageous pricing on software, equipment, and SaaS tools by purchasing for hundreds or thousands of clients. These volume-based discounts are passed on to customers.
- Reduces Support Costs via Automation: ITSaaS providers integrate intelligent automation to handle high-volume routine support tasks. This shrinks the manual work needed, thereby lowering costs.
- Enables Internal IT Focus on Strategy: With ITSaaS taking care of day-to-day support, in-house IT teams can devote more time to developing technologies and processes that boost productivity, revenues, and competitiveness.
The economies of scale make it possible for MSPs to deliver enterprise-grade support at a fraction of the in-house IT cost for most organizations.
Scalability
A major advantage of ITSaaS is the immense flexibility it provides to scale IT support on demand based on evolving needs:
- Swift User Onboarding: Adding new employees or sites is easily managed without expanding in-house resources. The MSP effortlessly configures systems and support for new users.
- Handles Volume Spikes: Seasonal peaks, new product launches, or special events often spike support volumes. IT support as a service deftly accommodates temporary expansions and contractions in demand.
- Simplifies Growth Scaling: As the business grows, adding more users, applications or locations is a simple contract adjustment with ITSaaS. The MSP seamlessly scales up support capabilities in sync with the client's growth.
- Avoids Over-Provisioning: With ITSaaS, companies avoid the risk and cost of over-building in-house support capacity for peak demand periods. The elasticity of ITSaaS aligns support costs with actual usage.
This agile scalability enables optimal right-sizing of IT support aligned to an organization's evolving needs.
Expertise
Managed services providers house deep expertise across a vast array of technologies not possible for businesses to replicate internally:
- Niche Skillsets: Access skills needed for specialized platforms like ERP suites (SAP, Oracle), vertical applications, legacy systems, niche databases, specialty programming languages, etc.
- Emerging Technologies: Get support for cutting-edge technologies like IoT, blockchain, quantum computing, AI, etc., which require very scarce skill sets.
- Infrastructure: Server systems, operating systems, and network equipment represent complex domains requiring extensive certifications and training.
- Compliance and Security: Stay compliant and secure with experts in regulations, threat management, vulnerability testing, forensics, and audits.
- ITIL Practices: MSP techs are trained in best-practice ITIL frameworks for superior incident, problem, change, and release management.
This specialized expertise enhances support capabilities and delivers vastly improved resolutions for complex, critical issues.
Proactive Support
Leading MSPs deliver proactive monitoring, maintenance, and management focused on:
- Patching and Upgrades: Critical patches, service packs, and version upgrades are rapidly deployed across the client's environment to close security and performance gaps.
- Health Monitoring: Continuous surveillance of infrastructure health – networks, servers, endpoints – is performed to catch problems brewing before they cause outages.
- Change Control: All changes – configurations, upgrades, patches, etc. undergo documented approval and testing protocols to avoid disruptions.
- Optimizations: Monitoring utilization patterns allows system enhancements to boost performance and user experience.
- Preventative Security: Logs, reports and tools like SIEM and endpoint protection provide threat visibility to proactively harden security posture.
- Backup Verifications: Regular recovery tests validate backup integrity, enabling restoration of data in case of corruption or loss.
This vigilance helps avert issues, minimize business disruptions, and keep operations running smoothly.
Service Quality
Selecting a mature IT support as a service provider is key to attaining consistently high service levels across metrics like:
- Response Times: Contractually defined response times (15 mins, 30 mins, etc.) for various priority levels based on ITIL standards.
- Resolution Speed: Prioritization and escalation processes to resolve outages and problems quickly based on business impact.
- Satisfaction Scores: Usage of NPS or CSAT surveys to measure client satisfaction and continually improve service.
- Staff Certifications: Stringent hiring standards and ongoing training to ensure certified, expert IT support personnel.
- Compliance Rigor: Established protocols, controls, and audits to maintain security, data protection, and industry compliance.
- Governance: Detailed client reports, business reviews, and account management to ensure transparency and alignment.
Trustworthy MSPs provide Maximum business value, not just minimum contractually obligated service levels.
Potential Challenges in Outsourcing IT Support
While IT Support as a Service delivers immense advantages, it also comes with some common concerns that must be evaluated:
Perceived Loss of Control
By outsourcing IT support, businesses relinquish some degree of control over their systems and data. This can cause unease for organizations accustomed to managing things in-house. However, prudent planning can mitigate these risks. Define highly detailed SLAs with hard metrics like response time, resolution rate, change approval processes, etc. Require approval authority for any major changes. Conduct periodic reviews of provider actions for transparency. With the right oversight model, businesses can align ITSaaS delivery with internal standards.
Integration Complexities
For businesses running complex legacy environments or niche platforms, integrating ITSaaS can get complicated. The provider must demonstrate extensive experience supporting core on-premise and cloud-based systems across the organization. Examine their expertise across operating systems, enterprise software suites, custom applications, networking gear, and security tools. Lack of visibility into these domains can hamper their ability to deliver comprehensive support. Engage professional services if needed to handle integration challenges smoothly.
Security Risks
Security is a paramount concern when handing over the IT reins to an external party. Rigorously validate the provider's security posture, policies, technologies, and compliance. They require examples of how they safeguard client systems and data across domains, such as endpoint security, access controls, encryption, vulnerability management, SIEM, backup, and disaster recovery. Check that they undergo regular independent audits and carry robust cyber insurance. Getting comfortable with their security model is crucial for risk mitigation.
Finding the Right Cultural Fit
Ineffective alignment with unique organizational needs and culture is a common pitfall. Not all MSPs share the same values, communication styles, and customization capabilities. Finding one that meshes well and feels like an extension of the in-house team is key. Ask trusted references about their partnering approach. Look for flexible providers focused on optimizing the client experience. Cultural disconnects can quickly derail the relationship.
While prudent planning helps mitigate these risks, they warrant careful evaluation when deciding on ITSaaS. But, the business gains often outweigh the concerns with the right provider in place.
Conclusion
ITSaaS in 2024 will necessitate evaluating providers based on their ability to blend broad IT competencies with niche skills, integrate intelligent automation seamlessly, deliver support securely across distributed environments, and demonstrate a holistic understanding of the client’s business objectives.
Companies willing to embrace this new paradigm of IT support and select the right partner stand to benefit from greater agility, innovation, resilience, and value. With careful analysis of their unique needs and priorities, IT leaders can determine if ITSaaS still presents a strategic, cost-effective technical support model for the future.
Wing helps you find the best IT support as a service professionals for your team. Our agents help with help with customer onboarding, bookings & reservations, chat support, etc. Book a call today to learn more about Wing IT support agents!
Aya is Wing Assistant’s blog manager. When she’s not wrangling content briefs, editing article drafts and handling on-page SEO, she is crafting messages for Wing’s other communication materials. Aya writes about SaaS startups, marketing for startups, search engine optimization, and pop culture.
