Customers Happy With MSPs but Unware of All Their Offerings
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A State of Confusion
About three in 10 organizations have adopted managed services, which may include SaaS applications such as Salesforce.com or Google Apps, although there are no actual contracts with MSPs. Translation: "true" managed services use may fall below 29%. -
Embracing Managed Services
58% of organizations have used managed services for some or all of their IT needs between two to five years. That's up from 51% in 2011. Another 29% of the 2013 respondents have used managed services for more than five years. -
Impact on IT Departments
After contracting with an MSP, 6% of organizations eliminated their in-house IT staff, 26% reduced head count and 53% made no changes. -
Security Trumps IT Problems
The top factor driving organizations to adopt managed services is to improve security, followed by proactively addressing IT problems. Other top factors include better uptime, access to newer technologies, cost savings, peace of mind, free internal staff for strategic work, access to cloud solutions, lack of internal IT and remote office IT. -
Cost Savings Is Always a Factor
57% of respondents said cost savings is their primary reason for adopting managed services. Among these respondents, more than one-third, across all company sizes, expect significant savings over time. -
Buying Clout Shifts
Although IT execs are the biggest decision-makers (48%) behind a move to managed services, three in 10 organizations said non-IT executives such as CFOs, GMs, and procurement officers make those decisions. -
Technology Accelerates Demand
Nearly seven in 10 midsized to large companies said they are looking at MSPs to become more proactive about technology. -
Satisfied Customers
77% of organizations across all company types said the transition to managed services went according to expectations and 16% said the process exceeded expectations. -
Training Is Required
Four in 10 organizations report that their MSPs provided on-site training sessions as part of the adoption process, and the trend is increasing. -
Business Priorities
56% of respondents report that reducing costs/overhead is the biggest priority in the next 12 months, followed by improving staff productivity/capabilities (52%) and reaching new customer segments (50%).
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Defining MSPs' Goals, Challenges and Tools 
Why Metrics Matter to the Channel A modest increase in managed IT services adoption may signal the need for more customer education but also indicates there are more opportunities for market penetration. This is a key conclusion of CompTIA's managed services trends study, which shows a general satisfaction by customers who adopted managed services. The study suggests that more companies could benefit if they were aware of what managed service providers (MSPs) can offer IT organizations to meet their business priorities. These include reducing costs/overhead, improving operational efficiencies, reaching new customer segments, improving data analytics and innovating more effectively. Many of these tie into technology, which can be a great equalizer. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) are looking at the MSP model to help them evaluate and address cloud computing, data analytics and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trends. Case in point, 92 percent of survey respondents (based on 400 businesses using managed services) said technology is strategically important for their companies, compared with two years ago. Here are 10 takeaways from the CompTIA report.