UK SMBs: Managed Services Are in, but Traditional Suppliers Could Soon Be out

First, the good news: More than 70% of UK SMBs are either currently using or planning to use managed services. Now, here’s the bad news: SMBs are increasingly unhappy with the candidates offering to take on the job.

The key drivers in the migration to managed services are to enable SMBs to focus on their core business, to ease the difficulty of maintaining a service in-house or to save money—a pragmatic approach by companies with traditionally limited internal IT staff. However, the problem is that because of service support issues, SMBs are reluctant to migrate to managed service functions that are viewed as strategic to the daily operation of their business unless that function requires specialist expertise that is outside of the capabilities of the internal IT team.

I.Research Methodology

II.Service Providers Need to Increase Channel Support

III.Supplier Relationships Will Stall Market Development

IV.Keeping Managed Services at Arm’s Length

V.Is There a Light at the End of the Tunnel?

VoIP

SaaS

VI.Conclusions and Recommendations

Recommendations for Service Providers

VII.Further Reading