IT systems and support must continue to function smoothly even during the holiday season. If employees encounter problems with IT applications, these should be resolved promptly. But who takes care of IT support when the IT administrator is on a well-deserved vacation?
The out-of-office message is set up and off you go on your well-deserved vacation. For many employees, vacation time is a time for rest and relaxation. But in the IT sector, problems during this time can quickly lead to disruptions. When employees are on summer vacation, longer downtimes can occur because they cannot respond immediately. The remaining staff cannot put out all the fires at once, and important data no longer flows into the designated applications, or the systems come to a standstill.
So, are internal IT experts never allowed to take vacation?
No, that's not quite true, because there are solutions that ensure that such fires don't even occur in the first place. If IT operations cannot be guaranteed, employees cannot continue working on their tasks and, in the worst case, the system downtime can lead to a loss of revenue. So the magic word is: IT support.
After all, nothing can dampen the holiday spirit as quickly as an unresolved technical problem. With a well-organized IT strategy, companies can give their employees a worry-free summer vacation while ensuring that business processes continue to run smoothly. An effective IT strategy should therefore also include clear planning for the vacation period to ensure that everything runs smoothly and any problems can be quickly resolved. Well-organized IT support can thus help employees enjoy their well-deserved summer vacation while ensuring that business processes continue to run smoothly.
No IT application is safe from unforeseen disruptions or even a complete system shutdown. If the internal IT experts are on vacation during this time or one of the specialists suddenly falls ill, there is even a risk of the entire system failing. That's why it's good to have a contingency plan at hand.
Vacation cover and reliability through Managed ServicesWhat are managed services? Managed services can be defined as IT services... More
If a suitable holiday replacement cannot be found immediately, there is the option of commissioning an external service provider to operate the IT systems. Managed services are tailor-made solutions for maintaining IT operations even in the event of illness or during holiday periods. IT support from external service providers can help companies operate their systems efficiently, even during vacation periods. If it is difficult to find a suitable vacation replacement, an external service provider offers a tailor-made solution. External IT experts monitor the systems and ensure that everything runs smoothly.
IT departments spend about a third of their working time solving problems in the systems and processing requests from the specialist departments. Controlling reports that it cannot continue with planning because the necessary reports can no longer be extracted from the system. Or management has an important meeting, but the reports are not available. The internal specialists then often have to drop everything and solve the problems.
A managed services provider can take the pressure off internal IT experts, allowing them to concentrate on their core tasks again. Digitalization is making IT requirements increasingly complex and time-consuming, while at the same time there is a lack of support due to a shortage of skilled workers. Managed services allow tedious and repetitive tasks to be handed over to external specialists. We ensure that data is fed into reports even at night, so that the latest figures are always available. This frees up valuable time for the IT department to focus on truly important issues.
The services provided by a managed services provider can be tailored precisely to the requirements and needs of your company. Do you only need support from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or would you also like to have access to on-call support at the weekend? Your individual requirements are defined and recorded in the service level agreements (SLAs). Secure yourself now with short response and processing times.
Reduce costs, increase efficiency
One concrete benefit of this collaboration is that companies can reduce their costs and increase their efficiency. A comparison between in-house operations and managed services shows that in a medium-sized company that maintains its IT operations with three employees, each employee spends an average of 30% of their working time on system support. In contrast, a managed services provider is available around the clock and takes care of all basic maintenance. Basic maintenance consisting of a service desk, event management, housekeeping, and regular security updates and patches are always included in our managed services. In addition, we take care of incidentand problem management as well as request fulfillment as standard.
| Internal operation | Managed Services | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of experts | Team of 3-5 experts | Team of 40 experts |
| Certifications/Training | Purchase expertise annually (courses, training, etc.) | Expertise always available (even when leaving) |
| operating manual | ||
| Short system downtimes | ||
| Fast response time | ||
| Up to 24/7 availability | ||
| Monitoring & Housekeeping | ||
| Change & Request Management | ||
| Reporting & Documentation | ||
|
Single point of contact for IT and specialist department |
||
| Costs per year |
Approximately €95,000 (for 3 IT administrators) |
approx. $50,000 |
The information on internal operations is based on assumptions. The information on managed services refers to a standard offering that is contractually guaranteed. Any internal regulations are not taken into account here.
You run your business, we run your systems
As a managed services provider, we at ISR ensure, among other things, that your business-critical applications run smoothly. True to the motto: You run your business, we run your systems. You can book our services flexibly according to your needs. You have complete flexibility and the choice between flat-rate or expense-based billing, regardless of whether you only need us for a short period of time as a vacation replacement or are interested in a long-term collaboration.
Would you like to learn more about our services?
Jens Brettschneider
Head of Business Unit
Application Management
jens.brettschneider@isr.de
+49(0)151 422 05 425
