September 25, 2007
Majority of Businesses Not Yet Utilizing Managed Services
In the first of our services-themed surveys to probe decision-maker approaches for maintaining and managing communication infrastructures, TMCnet readers worldwide indicated that System Manufacturers were the clear choice when it comes to choosing an external maintenance provider.
Last week’s survey conducted in partnership with IntelliCom Analytics took a look at how many businesses have decided to go beyond traditional maintenance and engage a third party to provide managed services support in areas such as network performance optimization or configuration management.
Of the 1,734 global respondents, the overwhelming majority — 68% — are not currently using any externally provided managed services. Within this segment, more North American-headquartered businesses (72%) have chosen a non-external management approach compared to their Global Region counterparts (63%).
For the 32% of total respondents that do utilize third-party provided managed services, the choice of preferred provider is a toss up between Platform Manufacturers such as Avaya (News - Alert), and Network Service Providers such as BT. The responses show clear regional differences, with 36% of Global Region decision-makers clearly preferring Service Providers over Manufacturers (26%) and System Integrators (23%), while North American firms had nearly equal preference for Manufacturers and NSPs (35% versus 32%) with SIs and VARs the least preferred providers.
