The Six Business Benefits of Managed Services

The world of IT offerings sometimes feels like wandering through a blizzard of buzzwords, acronyms, and (hopefully) undeliberate obfuscations. Methodologies, masteries, certifications, and services all mixing together to form a slurry of sounds that is more likely to result in semantic satiation than deeper understanding. (To be fair though, when you say it enough times in a row, “cloud” does sound like a really weird word).

And so, when it comes to Salesforce consulting services, picking the right plan post-implementation can be tricky. While both break/fix and on-demand outsourcing models have been the traditional approach, in recent years more and more organizations are turning to managed services to stay on top of their tech and ahead of their competition.

In today’s post, we’ll take a look at Managed Services — what it means for your org, and the 6 business benefits of embracing an IT extension. Let’s dive in!

What is “Managed Services”?

Put simply, managed services is a proactive way to externally administrate your Salesforce org. Rather than hiring an internal Salesforce administrator or hiring a firm to complete a specific project, changeover, etc… you instead keep a firm on retainer for a specific-number of hours per week or month and they oversee your org’s development, growth, etc…

Everything from custom development, administrative tasks, bug fixes, end-user training, release management, data migration, and more — your managed service provider assigns the resources you need to handle your current, specific issues and ensure that you’re always taking advantage of the most effective tools, processes, and practices available.

And, now that we have a high-level understanding of what managed services provide, let’s jump into the 6 biggest benefits to organizations who embrace the arrangement.

Cost Savings and Consistency

If you’ve been following our blog long, you’ll know we always cover cost-related-impacts first because 1) they’re the least exciting part of any benefits list and we prefer to just get them out of the way and 2) for most readers, businesses, and organizations, they’re also the most important. So let’s shovel through our proverbial veggies here so we can eventually dive into some dessert.

Managed services save money.

The average salary for a full-time Salesforce Administrator or Developer is $87,000+, and the average salary for a full-time Integration Specialist is $127,000+. Even ignoring the costs of recruiting, hiring, on-boarding and retention — building and maintaining your own Salesforce staff isn’t cheap.

And finding experienced, effective, and certified team members can be tricky, especially if you’re not well-versed enough in the world of Salesforce to know what’s important, what to look for, what to ask, and what to avoid. Even once you’ve hired someone, retaining qualified, certified staff can be difficult. With Salesforce’s constant growth, you’re competing for talent against increasing demand from other organizations, and that can make it an uphill battle to stay on top of your tech.

With managed services, your annual spend will be less than hiring even 1 full-time employee and you avoid the additional costs and headaches that arise around retention, training, etc…

And compared to other consulting plans, where you pay per fix or per project, your organization benefits from predictable, regular costs — improving budgeting, forecasting, and fiscal planning. Money-wise, managed services are almost a no-brainer, but the benefits go way beyond the budget impact.

Proactive Innovation

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a good rule for some mission-critical processes, but it’s a risky way to manage your tech investments. With three new releases each year, continually evolving and improving functionality, and an ever-expanding product line, the most effective Salesforce orgs are anything but stagnant.

With a break/fix approach, your IT department (or consultant firm) is stuck in a loop of reactive efforts. Chasing problems and rushing out solutions to put out the figurative fires. And while they’re rolling out hot fixes, frantically reading release notes to figure out what’s changed, and working tirelessly to maintain the status quo, your competitors are innovating, improving, and positioning themselves for the future.

With a managed services solution, your tech investment is protected and you’re always on the cutting edge in terms of efficiency, training, and best-practices.

Beyond addressing user issues and development, configuration, and customization requests, your resources at your managed service provider are constantly learning and improving themselves, empowering them to make forward-looking suggestions, prepare your team for new releases, and help you cut through the sales-speak to identify which products are business-critical and which need a little more time in the incubator before being production-ready.

A managed services partner knows Salesforce and more importantly, they know you, your organization, and your processes. It’s the difference between hiring a contractor and an architect — you want a tech team that can help you think and act strategically, tactically, and proactively.

Experience and Expertise

One of the primary drivers of that potential for proactive development is a knowledge and expertise that’s basically unmatchable by individual hires. Utilizing a managed services setup, you not only benefit from the individual knowledge and experience of your assigned resources, but also from the institutional knowledge of the company itself.

Using MK Partners as an example, we’ve successfully helped over 1,100 organizations complete over 2,200 projects in addition to providing managed services, so we’ve seen it all. Through helping large public agencies, Fortune 500 powerhouses, globally scaled non-profits, and even local mom-and-pop shops —we’ve developed an unparalleled knowledge base, a deep understanding of the complexities of, and variations between, different organizations and a bird’s eye view of best practices, organizational necessities, and the most common pain points on the horizon, no matter where an organization is on their journey.

We also know Salesforce. Over the last 13 years we’ve watched (and helped shape) their journey from SaaS CRM-disruptor to one of the biggest, most widely-adopted systems in the world. We speak “Salesforce”. We think in “Salesforce”. And that knowledge is baked into every one of our assets, giving our clients a perspective above and beyond customer or sales-rep — it’s the view of a Salesforce native.

Diverse Talents + Flexibility

Sometimes you need an admin. Other times, you need a developer. Still other times, you need a business analyst, a technical architect, a user-trainer, etc… We’ve all heard the phrase, “when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” and Salesforce is no different, there’s tremendous value in having a wide range of tools in your toolbox to choose from.

With managed services, you never have to worry that you’re missing the right tool for the job. Instead of hiring a full-time admin, and a full-time dev, etc… you’ve got access to talented individuals in every role and only need to tap them in for the hours you need their assistance.

When you’re first rolling out your org, you’ll often need a lot of configuration and admin help. If you decide to build out a customer community portal or a mobile app for your sales team, you’ll likely need some dev hours. Having the flexibility of a team that adapts to your needs is a huge advantage that managed services provide over a more typical tech management approach.

And beyond that practical flexibility, there’s also a benefit in having multiple perspectives on potential solutions, even before work begins. With your goals documented and your current processes codified, you can start planning the roadmap for the future of your org. By having access to multiple resources, with diverse talents and backgrounds, you get a more complete look at all of the potential ways to meet your goals. In Salesforce, there are often multiple approaches to generate an intended effect, and it’s valuable to get input from those experienced with similar projects to determine which approach will be the most timely, cause the least disruption to current work, and provide the broadest foundation for expansion in the future. Most importantly, whatever route you end up taking, you’ll already know you’ve got the talent you need to implement it.

Scalability

Lastly, as your organization grows and your needs, goals, and vision evolve, so can your managed service package. Adding more assistance is as easy as adding more hours to your contract. No need to bring back your second-choice-candidate for that admin position or re-open the job hunt, just update your contract and you’ll have qualified, experienced help instantly!

An effective “Salesforce department”, staffed by experts, that can grow right alongside your business ensures that no matter how quickly you expand, you’ll never “outrun” your systems. And that scalability also empowers you to make more regular, iterative adjustments based on your needs. When deciding when to expand a department, organizations often wait until one employee is doing double their work before bringing on someone else to get the levels back down to the baseline, but with a managed services contract you don’t have to limit yourself to whole numbers. It’s much easier to tie your departmental growth to your organization’s expansion when you can add additional support in increments of 5%, 10%, 15%, to match your actual revenue/customer/departmental growth. Similarly, reducing your contract hours can be an effective way for well-established orgs to dial down costs post-implementation without abandoning their org maintenance completely.

In short, managed services provide expert help that can adapt to your needs, scale with your organization, and empower proactive tech management and maintenance. In addition to lower costs, greater fiscal stability, and the benefits of getting input from multiple, diverse perspectives and talents, managed services are quickly becoming the preferred system across industries.

If you’d like to learn more about how managed services can help your organization achieve its tech goals, drop us a line — we’ll be happy to help!

In the meantime, keep working hard, smart, and happy. And we’ll see you in the cloud!