Unlocking the potential of managed services
Managed services as a concept started in 1990s with application service providers and has since then grown and expanded much, not only into technology but also into other sectors, such as HR, payroll, Transport, & logistics. Most of the managed service contracts and services into these areas as fairly settled and well understood. As the gig economy picks up, there is a need to expand and talk about managed services in areas beyond the established ones.
Managed Services currently
In common parlance managed services is assumed to be in reference to technology service and application management. Given the size of the technology managed services market which is currently quoted to be anywhere in the range of $200 Billion to $342 Billion and is predicted to grow to $400 Billion by 2027, IT managed services overshadows the discussion obviously
Here’s how Gartner defines Managed Service Provider: A managed service provider (MSP) delivers services, such as network, application, infrastructure, and security, via ongoing and regular support and active administration on customers’ premises, in their MSP’s data center (hosting), or in a third-party data center. The term MSP traditionally was applied to infrastructure or device-centric types of services but has expanded to include any continuous, regular management, maintenance, and support.
It obviously lists this definition under information technology glossary.
Wikipedia starts with a generic definition but eventually moves towards technology references only. This is how it is defined there “Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the reduction of directly-employed staff.”
In the current context – the great resignation continues – with more and more labor force wanting to pursue different careers or simply not quit working from home. Even those currently, employed – some are looking forward to open offices full time, but many would prefer hybrid.
Over the next 2-3 years, 44% of the employees surveyed want to be working remotely, while a slightly lower proportion would prefer to work from offices. Hybrid work is preferred by an even lower 24%.
62% employers in small sized organizations and 40% in MSMEs consider "Increase in Gig work/freelancing to be the biggest trend so far post-pandemic."
The potential for managed services
Specialized areas such as Process Excellence, Project Management (non-tech), Business Process documentation, Quality Management System Deployment are ripe for managed services.
The benefits remain same as technology outsourcing/ managed services
- Lesser on-roll headcount
- Overall lesser costs vs hiring a team full time
- Quicker delivery
- Easy turn on
- Management bandwidth efficiency
Why?
In addition to above, it provides for
- Fit for use experts: experts can be swapped dependent on the need. Once a transformation expert has created a recommendation and the roadmap is agreed, a project manager can come in and deploy.
- Fractional payment for management of the resource: specialized dedicated resources, such as six sigma black belts need supervision from master black belts, the cost of hiring both is high. With managed services and Gig plugged together, the master black belt only charges for the time used
- Easy increase/ decrease of resources: Project manager/s, Black belts can be tapered off along with the volume of work
- Variable pay ensures better outcomes: For employees, generally the variable pay is about 10% (bonus) and potential increment and they have a year to earn it. An expert would only the agreed for time to deliver the outcomes and earn the variables, which can be up to 30% of the total invoice
- Quicker work start: The standard notice periods are 2 to 3 months, add the hiring process time (say 30 days), your new employee expert can only join in 60 to 90 days vs a managed services professional can join in 0 to 30 days
Here are some examples of how we @EasyProblemSolving are helping one client at a time through our managed services offerings
A large BPO needed a transformation expert to study processes and create a transformation roadmap, deploy quick wins and handover to internal teams – project spans only 3 months.
A mid-sized BPO wanted to initiate some urgent client requested projects, faced difficulty in finding the right resource to join and didn’t want to pay additional headcount of a supervisor. EPS provided a bundled service of a six-sigma black belt and master black belt.
An Electric Vehicle manufacturing company needed QMS to be deployed and our expert accepted the challenge and deployed the scoped work within 2 months
A micro finance company and a large gig workforce company wanted process documentation to be reviewed, updated and improvement opportunities identified.
A resource management company based in Australia, needed a project manager to manage a re-organization project for client based in Australia. The resource joined in a week, working remotely from India
A client needed a compensation & benefit leader to come in support the appraisal cycle, working with HR team and business leaders. A compensation and benefit expert-initiated support within 2 weeks.
Bottomline:
Managed Service can be utilized for work traditionally thought to be done by permanent employees. The labor market environment support this and successful case studies support the cause.
EasyProblemSolving provides managed services in the areas of transformation, process excellence, process documentation, project management and HR expertise areas. Know more about our managed services offerings, here.