The recession is driving the increased use of managed services by IT organizations.

That’s according to a new report from Forrester Research which notes that almost 20 percent of IT professionals are purchasing more managed services as a result of the current economic conditions. The finding comes from Forrester’s Enterprise and SMB Networks and Telecommunications Survey.

“While the down environment is making most technology areas suffer, managed services is getting a boost as firms look for more flexible payment models that limit capital expenditure but also can keep them current with technology changes that help their firm,” said Ellen Daley, vice president and research director at Forrester, in a prepared statement. “This further accelerates an industry move to a more flexible services model for fulfillment of telecom, network and IT technology changes.”

The Forrester survey of more than 2,300 IT executives and technology decision makers in North America and Europe found that 47 percent of enterprise respondents and 37 percent of SMB respondents say that they have already purchased managed or outsourced telecommunication services.

Resource Library:

But unlike in past years, the top reason for managed service use wasn’t cost savings. Rather, both enterprises and SMB respondents say they are motivated to use managed services in order to focus on their core business competencies and instead of keeping the network running.

The survey also found that adoption of unified communications continues to grow. Forrester says that 22 percent of enterprise respondents and 24 percent of SMB respondents report that they are already using or are implementing a unified communications solution. Only 12 percent of enterprises and 20 percent of SMBs say they have no interest in UC. Business identified cost savings and better communications as the drives behind adopting UC.

Another growing area comes with desktop voice over IP (VOIP), according to Forrester, which reports that 34 percent of enterprise respondents say they have already implemented or are implementing desktop VOIP and another 14 percent are expanding or upgrading their VOIP environments. On the SMB side, 34 percent of those respondents say they’ve already implemented desktop VOIP and another 9 percent are upgrading or expanding their current implementations.

Nearly 65 percent of enterprise respondents and half of SMBs have implemented or are implementing a wireless network (WLAN), Forrester adds. And while enterprises are very interested in both fixed and mobile WiMax, SMBs showed more resistance to public cellular data, with 45 percent saying they have no interest in it.