How to pay as you grow... and save if you shrink

The advice comes in the wake of the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) with the knock-on effect of its planned public sector cutbacks causing pain throughout the business community and beyond.

Bryn Sage, Chief Operating Officer at InTechnology, says: "Organisations today are facing exceptional pressure to cut costs. An experienced Managed Service Provider can throw them a real lifeline, giving them financial advantage and helping them retain their operational agility and competitive edge. InTechnology already has hundreds of customers proving this!"

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) offer companies a variety of IT and communications capabilities. Delivery methods vary, with hosted "Cloud-based" data storage and management services often provided over the internet. However, the internet is variable and some services can be seriously impacted. Mr Sage explains: "For services like InTechnology's, the internet simply isn't fit for purpose and so we have invested heavily in a highly efficient enterprise-grade, private fibre network. This means that we can provide the complete range of on-demand voice and data services, including the latest IP telephone systems that support desktop communications, such as instant messaging, video calling and desktop sharing, all from one secure pipe."

With low capital outlay and predictable monthly costs, the MSP route gives businesses the budget certainty they need in difficult economic times. Licences are usually monthly and offer companies a scalable "pay-as-you-grow, save-if-you-shrink" model, enabling them to buy in IT and communications resources in much the same way as they buy other utilities like electricity, gas and water.

Locating their own physical servers in a service provider's data centre (or using its hosted virtual servers) reduces the costs of storage, as does outsourcing the management of data backup and archiving. The service provider also meets the costs of upgrading and securing the data and putting in place disaster recovery processes.

Mr Sage explains: "MSPs appeal not just to IT directors but also to financial directors who recognise they're getting the best technologies and constant upgrades without unexpected investment. They like the fact we're talking about flexible, operational expenditure that can be adjusted to meet current needs, not the upfront capital expenditure for storage and services that half the time might be surplus to requirements."

There can also be operational cost savings. By centralising critical business systems within data centres and running their applications on a virtual platform, businesses can benefit from a huge power saving, reducing energy costs. Switching to IP telephony can bring annual savings of hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds – especially if the same high-quality IP network is used for other voice and data services.

With the MSP focusing on the back end, IT departments are freed from time-sapping day-to-day management of the infrastructure and can focus on front-end business benefits. By using a single vendor, they also eliminate the need to forge separate relationships with the different network, server and telephone providers and their support teams.