Study: Enterprises Are Turning to MSPs to Close Skills Gap, Address Complex IT Issues

According to a new study, many enterprises are turning to managed services providers (MSPs) to assist with closing the IT skills gap, and to address increasingly complex IT issues in the cloud.

Commissioned by Virtustream and conducted by 451 Research, a report, titled “Demystifying Cloud Transformation: Where Enterprises Should Start,” found that more than 66 percent of enterprise organizations using cloud computing technologies to assist with business operations are also leveraging numerous types of managed services. Those businesses aren’t only using various levels of managed services today but are expecting to invest more in the future.

Seventy-one percent of the survey’s respondents believe investing in managed services will be a better use of their funds in the future. One of the reasons for this belief is that managed services enable teams within those organizations to focus on more strategic and productive IT projects.

Even though many enterprises are aware of their options in the cloud, they rely on MSPs to provide them with an additional layer of expertise when it comes to the decision-making process and actual migrations. Enterprises typically lack resources to migrate to the cloud, especially with technological unemployment at a 20-year low, making MSPs extremely valuable in the market.

The report also highlighted a couple of other findings worth noting.

IT issues are becoming more complex

As the threat landscape continues to evolve, many enterprises are in a constant state of flux. They’re typically unsure how to best protect themselves, along with their customers, from cybercriminals dedicated to infiltrating their networks and systems for nefarious means. The challenges continue to grow.

Sixty percent of enterprise organizations believe challenges are becoming more acute, according to the study. The respondents also reported the following: Overall, IT is getting harder to manage, especially when increasing security concerns are rising, and the amount of data is growing.

The report highlighted several managed cloud services slated for growth in the next two years, including the following: security for data in the cloud; migration and integration; performance optimization; and day-to-day monitoring.

As IT challenges become increasingly complex, instead of leveraging internal resources, many enterprises are looking elsewhere for help.

Enterprises are turning to MSPs to assist with cloud challenges

Even though businesses are turning to the cloud for a variety of reasons, many of which focus on growth initiatives, they’re still relying on MSPs to provide them with additional services, including managed services. Projects and other initiatives present many opportunities for businesses to work with MSPs.

According to the study, some of the top reasons why businesses are using managed services are: more cost-effectiveness; frees up internal IT staff to focus on other projects (there are opportunity costs); performance increases; access to specialized experts; and improved security.

Regarding cloud implementations, enterprises are facing many obstacles, including governance and compliance; cloud migration and integration; optimizing cloud infrastructure for cost; refactoring applications for the cloud; and optimizing cloud infrastructure for performance, according to the study.

While MSPs currently have a range of offerings available to assist enterprises with cloud migration challenges, many enterprises begin turning to MSPs for cloud-based backup and recovery solutions.

Enterprises also use the following managed services associated with the cloud: day-to-day operational monitoring of cloud infrastructure performance; management of applications deployed in the cloud infrastructure; and ongoing execution of security for the cloud.

If cloud-based solutions continue to become increasingly complex, many businesses are going to search for other options to manage their IT environments — and that’s where MSPs can step in.