What constitutes a great managed services service provider?

I have been meaning to write about IT managed services for some time now. The concept of IT managed services is almost as important as the internet itself or as important as a mechanic is to the motor industry.

Just as mechanics are put on this earth to insure the “well-being” of our cars: oil checks, shock checks and wheel alignment, the same can be said about managed services taking care of all IT infrastructure. Yes, IT infrastructure also needs taking care of. Servers can crash, machines can break and data can get lost or compromised. This is why the concept of managed services came about.

The concept of managing data, making sure data is secure and machines are in optimal working order insures businesses can carry on with their normal daily tasks and in the end bring in the money. High demand for work that needs to be done quickly and efficiently creates the issue that needs to guarantee that your data centres can’t be down for any given period. This is where a good and reliable service provider comes in to play.

With this said, what constitutes a great service provider?

The first thing that needs to be assessed is the redundancy of your data. What does data redundancy mean? Redundancy is the duplication or re-writing of data, this enables systems to continue operations when parts of a system fail or when data is lost.

Secondly, you need to look at the security of your servers. The security of your servers is a company’s first line of defence in protecting that company’s IT infrastructure. It is essential that security procedures are set in place to safe guard said infrastructure, even at the slightest indication of third party interference. 

This brings me to firewalls. Firewalls can be software or hardware (depending on how much you are willing to spend, software being the more affordable option) installed into servers to keep all data secure. Firewalls are designed to breach the gap between an internal network deemed secure with an external network normally seen not to be secure.    

There are a lot of service providers out there, and the credibility of them should be considered when shopping around for the perfect one. When looking for the ideal service provider it is wise to choose one that resonates with your company’s ideals and values. Success stories, case studies, press releases and blogs on them is essential in helping you choose the right service provider with the appropriate credentials. 

It’s all good and well to look for a service provider that you are comfortable with using, but employing technicians with the highest level of qualifications is almost as important as the service provider itself. These technicians manage the overall well-being of any organisation’s IT infrastructure. Maintenance duties such as maintaining of servers, security issues and network connectivity are only a few of the services these technicians should be able to handle.

SLA’s or service level agreements, as with any other business transaction should be drawn up with commencement of the work these technicians will be undertaking. These SLA’s normally set the benchmark of what needs to be done and what is expected. 

Not all of us speak “NERD”, so it is very important for me, and I think for a lot of people when I phone my service provider for assistance that they speak a language I can understand.

What is vendor relationship management?

By now everyone has heard of the concept CRM (Customer Relationship Management), this is a complete process where you manage all your customer management needs. But what about managing your vendors?

As with a CRM system that is completely customer driven, VRM is a concept solely geared for the management of a business’ vendors or suppliers. Is there really a need for such a system? And will a system such as VRM guarantee cost savings to a company.

VRM can also be seen as supplier management, it is a help line designed to manage all your vendor or supplier issues, data and correspondence. VRM is not a stand-alone system but can be customised within a CRM system. VRM is a great helpline in setting up workflow systems customised to your specific business needs.

Order generation can be simplified and stream-lined to ensure better ordering processes and payment plans. Seeing that VRM is not a financial system, all data that gets generated from VRM can be exported to a business’ financial system for easy payment and accounting generation. Price negotiation can be set up according to the various vendors according to credibility or delivery time frames. Purchase orders can be set up to be generated automatically and systematically by the user’s specifications.

Escalation rules can be set up to automatically trigger and send emails or on-screen notifications to ensure follow ups, advanced warnings and certain processes that should be followed. All meetings with vendors and suppliers can be logged and reported on. Calendar based management for tasks such as phone calls, emails and documentation simplifies the user’s tasks even further. Any field or task that gets created in the CRM system can be reported on in VRM.

The great thing about VRM is BEE management, specifically aimed at the South African market. Vendors can be rated according to their BEE status, this rating gets done when creating the supplier details and is automatically part of the purchasing and ordering workflows. This workflow manages all preferred BEE vendors. 

This brings me back to the issue of whether VRM has the capabilities of saving businesses money. Yes it can and it will.  As explained, it is easy to set up price negotiation capabilities within VRM the price negotiation capabilities can be customised to suit the supplier and the customer.

If you are a business owner that already has a successful CRM system installed, why not take the plunge and customise your system to handle VRM capabilities? You have nothing to lose really, only greater ordering workflows and vendor relationships to gain.

CRM systems – organising expo chaos

Lately there has been a lot of hype around the Electra 2012 mining expo starting this week. As with any expo, whether it is a wedding, gaming or even a baby expo, these expos are there to showcase the best of the best. Expos can be seen as the mecca of a related industry or product, the crème de la crème are all competing to be seen as the leaders in their respective fields of business.

Expos are one of the biggest hubs of information and contact sharing. People go to expos with a specific idea of what they expect. More often than not, they walk away with the right information or product.

With all this traffic and information sharing in one place, is there really a system that can keep track of all your prospective clients or newly won clients? Is there a way to capitalise on this information?

Let’s take wedding expos as an example. Normally these exhibitors have visitor journals at their cubicle where prospective brides and grooms supply their contact details in the hope of the exhibitors getting into contact with them.

This is where CRM systems come into play, records can be set up with all the necessary info on prospective clients for future interactions. After a relationship has been established it is easier for the sales relationship to begin. Specific targeted marketing campaigns can be set up with the help of e-marketing where automatic emails can be sent to a specific target market. Schedules can be set up to send marketing emails automatically for if and when you are planning a certain marketing campaign.

After these emails it will be easier to gauge whether any of the information that got sent bare any weight, and if so, drip marketing campaigns can be set in place to narrow down your target market prospects even more.

Business owners can concentrate on better customer service through capabilities within the CRM system that indicate what level each sales process is on. This will give sales people a better understanding of what sales steps need to be taken next. It can also alert the user of any issue that may occur.

CRM systems will guarantee on-going customer service to your clients. All the information that has been accumulated during all campaigns and sales processes will aid in future marketing campaigns. This can also lead to repeat business through your existing client base that will ensure a return on your marketing investments.

I don’t think I will ever attend an expo again without thinking about the sales opportunities waiting to be created if and when business owners make use of the right CRM system. Imagine a business’ growth possibilities if each and every single person that attends a certain expo has his or her contact information captured and acted on.