If your business meets certain criteria and has less than about 500 employees, it might be a good candidate for managed hosting, according to a new white paper by Yankee Group of Cambridge, Mass.The white paper, sponsored by IT hosting vendor The Planet, concludes that companies with less than 500 employees could save significant money by moving to managed hosting. To determine whether it’s right for your business, the paper said, it’s important to first assess the importance of web infrastructure to the business, as well as the amount of available money and IT staff available. What’s more, it’s important to know how well the company’s IT staff has been handling existing projects, how much downtime systems have been experiencing, and how well the IT staff has been supporting the business in general.
It will become clear after answering those questions whether managed hosting makes sense. By using a managed hosting provider as an extension of its own IT staff and insisting on top-notch service and support, web-based businesses can eliminate IT capital cost requirements, increase efficiency while reducing labor costs, focus on their core competencies, reduce risks and level the playing field to compete more effectively with much larger organizations, said report author and Yankee Group senior analyst Gary Chen.
"By offering enterprise-class IT systems and services for a predictable monthly fee, managed hosting helps to level the playing field, as well as improve the technical capabilities of businesses that until now could not afford to match their larger competitors," he said.
In addition to creating a predictable cost structure, managed hosting also helps control capital expenses; improve accountability; better manage security threats; data privacy and compliance mandates; streamline operations; reduce staffing and labor costs; respond to market conditions more quickly; leverage expertise and best practices; and focus on core business competencies.
Managed hosting also addresses one of the sector’s very real challenges: lack of IT staff. According to a 2007 Yankee Group study, businesses with 2100 to 499 employees have an average of only ten full-time IT staff.
If you think managed hosting would benefit your business, evaluate potential providers carefully. Chen recommends asking the following questions:
• Does the provider follow a well-defined methodology for how it delivers service?
• Is the provider doing all it can to head off problems before they start?
• How much downtime have you had in the past year, and what was the effect on the business?
• Can the provider function like an extension of your IT staff?
• Can the host scale up or down with your business?
• How flexible is the hoster and what level of customization can it handle?
