What are Managed Services? (Part Three)
Welcome back to my three part series about support and managed services. This is the third and final installment in my musings on the topic. If you missed the first two parts, you can get up-to-speed here and here.
This last segment will focus on iArch Solutions Managed Services. We will discuss how we approach managed services, and we will end off with a qualifying offer for some free services to anyone interested in joining us here for assistance with the EPM or Cloud environments.
Here at iArch Solutions we break our offerings into two large groups, with the second group having its own set of tiers. Let me explain. In our minds there are two broad services offerings (as discussed in the preceding articles in this series); support and managed services.
Support customers tend to want the occasional bit of assistance with something. They usually have a good handle on their systems, both from an application and an infrastructure perspective, and do not need frequent assistance. These customers tend to need the occasional bit of assistance with an upgrade or patch, or implementing an application update or change. As such, they also do not need to have push-of-a-button responses, and they are happy to wait for some assistance. For these support customers, we simply engage with them to provide a bucket of hours they can consume throughout a year as needed. This support model looks like this:
Customers at this level email the resources they work with, arrange timing based on consultant availability and get the support they need. There are no SLAs, no ticketing system and they are only billed as hours are consumed. It is simple for all parties and definitely can help keep costs down when time is not a factor.
After that initial support tier, we are in the proper territory of managed services. Here we break things up into three further tiers: Reactive, Proactive and Predictive.
Reactive managed services is a base level offering for customers who want ticketing, response times (SLAs) and guaranteed support hours. It also includes some basic patching services. All of this is based on a monthly retainer fee, as with all of the managed services tiers. This managed services tier looks like:
Proactive managed services are the offering most closely aligned with the standard definition of managed services. At this tier we include items like: increased SLA response times, upgrade patching (including Oracle EPM maintenance releases), assistance with OS/DB patching (or whatever patching or updates your non-EPM environment may require), and proactive monitoring of the environment via port checks, service uptime, etc. Additionally at this tier we assist with backup/recovery of application objects, DR testing plans, and other business critical ‘uptime’ operations. All Proactive managed services accounts have regular access to a services support manager for ticket reviews and assistance around critical tasks. This managed services tier looks like:
Predictive managed services is the final tier. Customers here are looking for something more than a traditional support offering. This level comes closest to full-time staff augmentation. Essentially we assign a specific resource to a customer to integrate with their team, and take over most support tasks for the day-to-day operations of their environments. This resource takes part in regular team meetings, monitors the environment daily, and is fully integrated with the customer. This managed services tier looks like:
As you can see from the above offerings, we try and cover the gamut of options across the support/managed services world. Our goal with these offerings is to provide customers with an offering that can be customized to meet their specific needs. Each of the above offerings can be tweaked to allow customers flexibility by adding additional tickets to a package, bundling in different components from other tiers, and adjusting the retainer fees accordingly. Our goal at iArch Solutions is to provide a solution that fits the customer’s needs and budget, while providing best-in-class service and support.
So now for the fun part. We are currently running a qualifying event offering. If you are interested in any of the tiers of managed services (reactive, proactive or predictive), we have the following deal for you:
Reactive Managed Services: Sign-On with iArch Solutions for one year and get the first month free!
Proactive/Predictive Managed Services: Sign-On with iArch Solutions for one year and get the first quarter free!
As always, we here at iArch Solutions look forward to hearing from you and hope we can assist you with your support needs. We are confident that if you pick us to assist you with supporting your environment, whether it’s EPM or some other solution, you will not be disappointed…so give us a call or drop us an email.