IT service providers need to talk with the customer

A study of Maxfocus, platform for system integrators and managed service providers and a product of Logicnow, occupied large discrepancies between the offers of IT service providers and the needs of customers.

In the study, "Global IT Service Provider Harmony" Maxfocus conducts an annual "health check" of the international IT services market. Maxfocus interviewed this time more than 1,300 IT departments and nearly 700 IT service providers in North America, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, and the Benelux countries, France, Australia and New Zealand, to face the needs of the company and offers the IT service provider. The results show that different supply and demand in many ways different. This relates not only to the services, for example the positioning of the deals and the type of billing.

Important Results at a Glance

Offers IT services providers not agree with the priorities of IT departments: The study found that IT departments often first turn to IT service providers, if they need help in solving current, business-critical emergencies. Instead of immediately complying with their specific needs in the first instance, many service providers extensive, designed to counseling services immediately offer. This deters many potential customers who would be more willing to general consultations only after the solution of an urgent problem.


Development of customer relationship: The survey shows significant differences in the answers to the question of how the relationship between IT service providers and IT departments should be further developed. 64 % of IT service providers would welcome a development of their customer relationships in the direction of broader strategic advice and want wider, offering more versatile and knowledge-based services. Only 13 % of IT departments are of the same opinion.

45 % of them want more tactical and technical IT support, 43 % want no change in the business relationship. Even with the companies surveyed 54 % are satisfied with their current service model. But it should be noted that already half of the surveyed companies have booked a 50/50 mix of Break Fix and managed services. Only 1 % worked on a pure break-fix model, 13 % have a stronger break-fix and 17 % stronger managed services weighting, while 19 per cent work with a pure managed services model.
Managed Security Services: When asked about what points the managed security services should be improved, most IT departments improved e-mail security, enhanced Internet protection and enhanced anti-virus protection desired. However, IT service providers are planning to prioritize the safety advice and offer increasingly proactive system updates and patches. These topics are on the priority list of surveyed IT departments at the bottom. That as proactive protection managed security can ultimately solve the focused on the company security problems, has obviously not yet been communicated or positioned successfully.

Customer Unfriendly price structure: 76 % of IT departments would like to get to safety management on a monthly, quarterly or annual total payroll, which summarizes all the costs of their accrued IT security requirements - including technology licenses and related services. Correspondingly worrying that 49 % of IT service providers don't offer this structure and individually any technology or service or ad hoc bill. 66 % of service providers do not intend it to change something within the next 12 months. Even 55 % of surveyed companies prefer a quarterly statement, 18 % of them would prefer a monthly and annual payroll. After all, 14 % of the service providers offer a quarterly total payroll, as well as the single settlement is common with many vendors. The currently of IT service most frequently offered model is the monthly billing.