10 Managed IT Services and Trends You Should Know Right Now

Managed IT services in Hollywood and beyond

These days, around half of enterprise-level companies make use of IT as a service, or “Managed IT”, within their company. The concept is growing every year as more companies see its benefits. Because of this, it is important to know what it can offer you so you do not miss out.

This article will explain how IT services in Los Angeles are changing and what trends you can expect to be at the forefront of managed IT services in 2022. By the end, you should have a good understanding of how the future will pan out so you can plan for it moving forward. So, read on and improve your workplace’s services.

1. Automation, Automation, Automation

There is more data than ever coming into companies after people use services or perform their jobs. Because of this, it is becoming much easier to analyze patterns in behavior.

Analytics has improved again and again over the past decade. It has gotten to the point where we can make use of artificial intelligence to analyze it and provide recommendations.

An AI can look at the work done and provide early warnings based on patterns it detects in a computer network then offer several options for a solution. For example, it can provide an automated response which it uses to mitigate any problems and keep a system running. It can then inform a human IT manager of any long-term repercussions or provide data for the manager to make decisions in the long term.

Automation in this case is much faster than any human can respond. It can cut off malicious access, increase processing power, or manage data in a larger system without a person needing to lift a finger. Many users will not even realize that anything is happening behind the scenes as resources move around.

2. Data-Driven Customer Service

While automation might make drastic use of data to perform a job better, the same data is also useful across the company to make other major changes.

For example, in the customer service area, representatives can get information on ongoing issues as they occur. No longer do they need to wait for that data to get passed their way by a third party. With such data, they can make plans to communicate with clients and customers before problems noticeably rear their heads.

Similarly, if long-term patterns energy, then the company can choose to react to them well before they happen. For example, managers can plan for more customer service reps to be around during specific periods. For example, when they expect peak calls every year. Or, managers can optimize inventory to be ready for an influx of new communication about specific problems that occur, or are likely to occur.

This is better than the analytics of the past, where people had to regularly retrospect on issues and resolve things as they happened. Gone are the days when an unexpected change would catch you out and that would cause an increase in customer service workload or other changes.

Instead, many other things can give you forewarning. Examples include external trends, your competition’s actions, or annual events. Instead, they can now give you an early warning of work you might need to do sooner.

3. Deeper Cooperation With Partners

Moving forward, we are likely to see more examples of both clients and outsourced tech support companies evolving and changing together. In the past, it was more expected that each separate entity would change their systems in isolation as technology improves. But, greater co-operation is now recognized as leading to better innovation on both sides of the relationship.

These days, clients have the opportunity to design and develop their own UIs, solutions, journeys. It allows them to create something that is custom-tailored to their processes.

At the same time, IT services provide the core underlying architecture that allows the solutions to work. IT services provide APIs that can allow this to work without having to create bespoke systems that work with the client.

To support this, an IT manager working for a service is likely to offer an outcome-based contract. It is rarer that services offer a very specific solution in the contract. Instead, the agreement communicates specific performance objectives the IT service must meet. The IT company then has greater freedom in how to resolve issues themselves and can innovate while doing so.

4. Increased Budget

It might sound blunt, but the simple fact of the matter is that with a larger budget, a managed IT service can do a lot more. In general, it is forecast that across the world, IT support spending looks like it will go up by almost six percent in 2022. That money can go towards your IT service management in a way that ensures you are getting a service worth paying top dollar for.

On top of that, to have a well-managed system, you need a highly-competent organizer. To get one of those for your IT system, you need to pay them an IT manager salary.

A larger budget allows you to put money aside to pay a good worker what they are worth. You will be able to both hire high-quality IT managers as well as keep hold of them if they have options to go elsewhere but your pay is too good to resist.

On top of this, it is true that many solutions to IT problems are not simple affairs. Many of them take large amounts of time and effort to put in place, and this costs money. This is without even thinking about long, ongoing support and bug fixes that made need to occur over time.

An increased budget mitigates some of the worries of this by letting solutions take as long as they need to. This prevents your service from rushing the solution the first time, or only half-completing it in preference of newer issues. You can also make sure that you can upgrade your managed IT service if you need to by buying a better or more comprehensive package.

5. Just In Time

These past few years we have found that new problems have hit every aspect of life. COVID and other healthcare issues have meant that any part of a work chain might go into disarray at any time.

This is true when we are thinking of a physical supply chain from manufacturer to client. But it is also true for the ability for managed IT services to stay on top of network issues. Not to mention, IT services need physical hardware or expect the completion of software or firmware on time.

As we move into 2022, we are starting to see data analytics used in this area of business also. Supply chains are starting to move from a front-heavy plan to a just-in-time process, communicating with all other steps as they move along. As any slowness affects supply chains, they can prepare and either change their plan or communicate any problems as necessary.

Just-in-time allows for better planning and better use of time across the board. Bottlenecks will be a thing of the past and prove an IT project manager’s salary to be worth its price.

6. Consolidation of MSPs

Commercial progress continues to occur in the world of MSPs. In the past few years, we have seen more and more interest from investors in the world of managed service providers. As such, we can expect some of these to come together under larger umbrellas as investors start to buy the more successful of these out.

While there are no platforms that currently stand out, it is not long before the diamonds in the rough begin to shine. When that happens, we can expect investment money to start to flow and the core MSPs to start buying up add-ons and utility investments.

We should expect many MSPs to be operating on a national scale within the next few years, if not 2022 alone. Then we will have a true two-tier market with both national companies and local ones. This is when USPs will come into play to determine who garners the most success.

7. Customers Demand More Strategic Thinking

It is often true that small to mid-sized businesses need to pay much more attention to digital business to stay afloat in their early days. They are not in a position to pay for a full executive team and often need more expertise in-house.

This is where a virtual CIO can come to the fore. In 2022, you should expect to see more temporary CIOs brought on board as companies realize they need their help.

Those already in the company may not have the required strategic thinking that comes from a CIO. Otherwise, they may have their head down in the trenches too often to sometimes look up and get a lay of the land.

Moving forward, expect virtual CIOs to advertise as someone who understands the market better than others. Providers will present them as someone who can choose and put in place an IT service management system and ensure it is the correct one to use. They will also be able to make several recommendations to help keep a company’s IT structure relevant long into the future.

8. The Right Vertical Markets Pay Off

Several investments have happened over the past few years into specific areas of IT management. The global crisis of COVID caused people to focus on far fewer USPs when it came to IT services. This prioritization was risky, but in 2022 we could see it paying off.

With the depressing nature of the global pandemic, many companies refocused. They paid attention to engagement with employees as well as the user experience of their client’s customers.

In some industries, consumers were the default market, such as entertainment and banking. Investing in these markets has paid off as more users are engaging more with their IT infrastructure. Online banking services are becoming more popular than ever, and more people using home entertainment than ever.

Other areas of business, such as the B2B sector, have not been as affected. People will be engaging with them the same way they always have. If anything, they may still be on the steady climb back to where they were before the pandemic.

9. Reduced Code

Low-code tools have had a renaissance recently. In the past, developers have seemed hesitant to use them, for fear of putting themselves out of business. Though they have now reached a critical mass where it is easy enough to get ahold of them, so now every company must think about their implementation.

With low-code tools (or no-code tools), developers can refocus. They can investigate business growth development or innovative solutions rather than coding. Perhaps even putting greater focus into the prevention of hacking and cyber attacks.

Also, you can onboard new developers faster than ever before. This allows new minds to engage with the company and new ideas to be at the forefront of the IT service industry.

10. Responsive Service

Security in the IT service industry is more important than ever. We are always at the stage where the advanced systems used by malicious actors are only a few steps behind solutions, if not ahead. Businesses must be able to respond faster than ever before to the dangers of being online.

As such, you must put in place an agile IT service in 2022 to be able to act when catastrophe strikes. Companies must have real, functional abilities to respond to problems as they happen. IT service management must also have the agency to take action before the issue even becomes a problem.

If your Los Angeles IT services company does not have the freedom to take action in this way, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a victim.

How Managed IT Can Help You

You should now have a much better understanding of how managed IT trends are affecting the face of IT services in 2022 and beyond. You might still have questions, though, and we would be happy to help you answer them.

You only need to phone us or send in a message and our specialists will work with you to ensure that you get the perfect IT service you need. So, give us a call today.

About Chad Lauterbach

CEO at Be Structured Technology Group, Inc. a Los Angeles based provider of Managed IT Services for small business. I desire to help small businesses better utilize technology by assisting in high level planning to make sure that new systems will benefit them both operationally and financially. I am careful to implement and support systems using industry best practices.