Virtual Support Networks:
“Managed services in North America are the key data service trend going forward.”
– Charles R. Carr and Eric Goodness, Gartner
The business of taking care of remote hardware and software has never been bigger:
- Managed systems and services for retail, point of sale, hospitality, and other distributed operations are a hot growth area.
- Enterprise help desks manage an increasingly dispersed array of hardware and software.
- Enterprise software providers are moving to managed services and other value added support offerings to preserve margins in the face of increasing price pressure.
Gartner estimates that managed services will grow at a CAGR of nearly 36 percent from 2001 to 2006.
These opportunities are being driven by CIOs’ need to manage cost and risk carefully. With research showing that 47% of IT spending going to total cost of support and maintenance (TCSM), outsourcing system management to specialists makes sense for the buyer. But where does it leave the provider?
Field service visits are very expensive, costing at least a hundred dollars for even the simplest issue, and much more for complex resolutions. Managed service providers wisely avoid “truck rolls” and field service calls if possible. But how?
A new class of technology that we call Virtual Support Networks, exemplified by WebEx SMARTtech, has arrived to fill exactly this need. Virtual Support Networks allow service providers to securely, scalably, and cost-effectively manage distributed installations around the world.
But technology alone isn’t enough: providers need to know the most effective ways to take advantage of this new technology to deliver added value to customers. In late 2004 and early 2005, DB Kay & Associates conducted a market survey to uncover the best practices for deploying Virtual Support Networks. Briefly, we learned the following principles, described in detail in this paper:
- Make it easy for your customers
- Be secure
- The internet isn’t perfect; deal with it
- Set customer expectations
- Be prepared for hard questions
- Measure effectiveness
- Create a dedicated team
- Back it up with remote access
- Keep good records
- Pick the right technology partner
By following these principles, the practice leaders we interviewed were able to lower cost, shorten time to resolution, and increase customer satisfaction.
The Virtual Support Network at Work
The Challenge of Delivering Managed Services
“Our analysts handle something like ten cases a day. They generally need to connect 100% of the time. Since these have been escalated to level 3, we’re trying to troubleshoot on-site, because it’s hard to reproduce in our labs.”
– Director, Tier Three Support, Managed Systems Provider
Simply providing remote support is hard. Working with on-site customer staff can be frustrating as call-backs proliferate. Diagnostic and repair tasks that would be easy in-person are often time-consuming and error-prone when done remotely, through a customer. Remote support is many times harder than the “good old days” of field service, when on-site technicians kept temperamental mainframes running with ongoing intervention. Still, at least there’s an on-site person working on the problem.
Not so with managed services. Customers pay a premium for support tasks to simply go away, especially in environments like retail locations, restaurants, conference rooms, and kiosks where trained staff aren’t available. In these environments, the managed service provider must go it alone.
Technology for remote access to computer systems is broadly available, but fails to meet the specific needs of managed service providers, especially for
- Security over the Internet
- Performance over the Internet
- Unattended operation
- Trust
Until very recently, managed service providers with on-premise hardware or software had Hobson’s choice—for many customer issues, they had to rely on the field service team as a first resort.
Moving from Lights-Out to World-Wide
“In the old days, we would have needed to jump through two or three PCs, connecting from a laptop in Asia Pacific.”
– Director, Tier Three Support, Managed Systems Provider
Standard remote management technology (like VNC or pcAnywhere) is designed for local area network access inside the data center. Relying on the network for security, it’s not secure when used outside of the firewall, nor is it architected for the Internet. On the other hand, Internet remote access tools and services require a customer on the other end. Neither solves the problem of providing managed services. Looking at the history of these technologies, it’s not surprising that they don’t.
