Most of us are familiar with managed IT services. So, what is the difference?
Between managed it services and co-managed it services. To help us understand this better, we have Steve Arndt and Greg Shenefelt. Steve is the President of Silver Lining's Technology, and Greg Shenefelt is a customer service representative.
How would you define, or give us an example of what is the difference between Co-Managed IT and managed IT.
Typically, managed IT or outsourced IT, covers the entire IT department or the operational part of the IT department and is fully transferred or contracted with another company like Silver Lining or another provider, essentially becoming the IT Department for the company.
Co-managed is really a hybrid where you have internal IT staff working with an outside provider, typically leadership, but it could be any operational components that are internal, and you are also making use of external resources, not on a one-off project basis, but on a contracted routine basis for specific functions.
Why would a company use co-managed IT if they already have an IT department?
This question gest asked a lot because a lot of IT leaders, especially in small or mid-size organizations where they've been around for a long time, feel threatened by this because they think that the co-managed provider is going to take over their job. It's really not the case at all. In the smaller or mid-size businesses, often you don't have the breadth of IT knowledge.
In today’s business world, IT touches everything, Typically, it takes at least four different skill sets within an IT organization to really adequately cover all of the bases, let alone all of the technology. Whether it's server, administration, network administration, strategy, project management, just day-to-day help desk, the smaller mid-size companies tend to get overwhelmed with that and focus on really daily operational challenges rather than potentially serious strategic issues that need to be addressed by them as well.Maybe your managed provider has tons of strengths, but one system isn't their specialty, and it is the co-managed partner specialty. It keeps you up and running and smooth.
The issues is that 85% - 90% of businesses think they're adequately covered right now. But if they answer a simple questionnaire or conduct a basic assessment that really opens their eyes to the gaps they are encountering. It isn’t to point fingers but to get a reality check as to what needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, many companies learn the hard way when an attack or event happens that stops them in their tracks, usually it's around security and compliance.
Communication Gap
The problem is communication, a CEO, CFO, don't know what to look for and so they just assume IT is taking care of all these things, including security, compliance, and training. We've run into many cases where the IT leader is really more a tactical operations person, whether networking or server admin, but they're really downward focused on keeping the lights on and not as focused on things like security or compliance changes.
Then, of course, there's some event or aha moment where the two come together and realize that the gap is bigger than what's expected, which is unfortunate.
Some recommendations on how a company could gage their current performance would be for the IT leader as well as the business leaders in the organization, is identify what they would call their critical operational systems. Is it your ERP or your CRM or your MRP or, quite frankly, your time and attendance system?
Typically, you’re going to get to five on your list. In many cases, this will sound crazy because in the old days, this was never the case. But quite frankly, now, email, whether it's Office 365 or Google Workspace, has become a critical application. Identify those, that short list, and then as the business leader, you need to ask yourself, how long can that application be down before you lose money? And what is your expectation for it to be back online if it does go down?
Then the IT leader does the same thing, and you compare those two things. And in most cases, we recognize that there's a gap right there, that the expectation of IT in terms of backup and recovery is a much longer threshold in reality than what operations believe it is. So right there, you've already identified a gap, which kills apart a whole bunch of things besides co-manage and all that. That's a good place to start.
From that, it's We're probably going to uncover other things as we go through and have that discussion. I want to emphasize that exercise does not necessarily mean you have bad IT.
IT Coverage 24/7?
Another good exercise is to ask if your IT staff works 24 x 7 x 365. If they don't, there's a support gap.
So that's a really simple place where a co-managed IT provider can help out and say, look we know you need to go on vacation or have weekends off. Let's have our outsource help desk cover those times so you're not burned out.
One of the huge advantages of engaging a co-managed provider is to look at the gaps that you as an organization have. Having a co-managed provider that has the security tools and the security procedures and training for their staff is a real augment. And what you'll end up learning is, they can add value with their software tools to help monitor or manage the network and react much quicker, either in the identification of a threat or the remediation of a threat that occurs.
The last thing you want is to be scrambling to figure out how to prevent or remediate something when it's going on.
It is important to understand your IT gap and the needs you have, then select a provider that offers the tools and experience to complement your IT staff in filling the gaps.
Many thanks for the interview with Steve Arndt, President Silver Linings
Technology.