Managed Office: Your Business Technology Never Looked Better

The next time you’re frustrated with yet another business technology problem, remember the Managed Office model.

What Are Signs Your Business Technology Needs a Managed Office?

Do the problems in this story sound familiar?

Constant struggle to manage multiple vendors – You have an IT company; you have a copier company; you have an Internet provider; you have a phone vendor. you have all the tech vendors. Then something happens with your A3 scanner. 

Unresolved issues never get closed – Typically in multi-vendor environments, the office manager or someone in charge of dealing with vendors will call the copier company about the scanner. The tech may come out the same day, the next day, two business days, however many days it takes, who knows? (What is your Service Level Agreement?) He shows up,  scans something, turns around and says, “It works, must be a network issue. I’m leaving, and that’ll be $200.” But your employees still can’t scan. 

Finger pointing and runaround – Now the office manager calls the IT company and says, “Hey, the copier guy just said it’s a network issue.” Now you wait again, same day, next day, two days, who knows how many days, and out comes the IT guy. He goes to the copier and says, “Well, it’s connected to the network. I just plug my laptop into the cord that’s plugged into the back of the copier. And look, I can surf the internet. It’s not the network.” And he departs, leaving another service charge in his wake.

So this business has received no help, and their issue isn’t resolved. They’ve incurred hourly bills, and users are still upset. That’s what life can be like without a managed office.

How a Managed Office Provider Handles Problems

A Managed Office provider would never let it get to that. This is how the story would go with a Managed Office. 

After quickly evaluating the service ticket, the business technology partner sends a copier tech onsite (assuming remote desk support wasn’t able to handle the problem.) The skilled tech quickly realizes it’s not the copier, but instead of passing the buck, he calls his colleagues at the Managed Office help desk. The tech reports a possible network issue and requests backup, which he gets right away.

Now in this scenario, the office manager has only made one call and only waited the agreed response time for a technician to show up. The Managed Office tech won’t dismiss the support call until the scanner is working again, even if it’s not the copier. And he now has his IT team behind him to help fix the problem.

Much better ending. One provider. One happy customer. No fingers.

Poor Support Response Is a Bad Sign

Some vendors claim to support office technology of all kinds, but when it comes to execution, they fail. Often businesses become disillusioned with their current technology vendors over just plain bad support. These customers routinely experience slow response, and vendors don’t fix problems the first time. Not a confidence builder.

Yet this is no time to lack confidence in your business technology partner. The infrastructure it takes to run a business today is overwhelming, from printers and copiers to security to cloud storage and more. If you can’t trust a partner to help you keep up, how are you going to manage it yourself? Because that’s pretty much what it comes down to. 

Best Business Tech Partners for Managed Office

It comes down to having that single partner who looks at your business technology holistically. But don’t get the idea that it means one person. The ideal Managed Office partner brings a team of talent. 

Technology vendors who haven’t kept up with staffing and training won’t serve you well. In your research about different IT providers, find out what steps they take to stay relevant in a digital business world. Does the vendor seem to think a highly skilled team will just happen organically, or do they take real measures to stay fully skilled, like strategic acquisitions and in-depth training?

Benefits of Managed Office for Business Technology

Businesses we work with soon discover two main things after adopting a Managed Office:

• The finger-pointing blame game goes away.
• The partner team stays fully engaged as a team.

 

Business technology can’t operate as siloed stacks, and neither should your providers, but is that likely to change? How often does a service technician call the copier company and say, “Hey, I’m going to meet with your customer. Let’s coordinate and figure out what’s going on.”  There’s usually little communication between the multiple vendors in one business, but wouldn’t it move things along faster if that was the norm? One meeting (or more as needed) where all the people helping your business collaborate and communicate with each other.

Those actually are the two biggest reasons we see businesses switch to the Managed Office now. The benefit of one invoice to deal with almost becomes secondary to the return on no more finger pointing and a unified tech team. 

One partner, one phone number, one team. 

What’s your business technology story going to be? We can share what the Novatech Managed Office would look like for your business. Just complete the short form on this page to get started.