Managed services spending by SMBs to witness 23% growth: AMI Partners

’The IT investments by Indian SMBs’ are slated to grow steadily, according to market research firm AMI-Partners. Amongst the front-runners, remotely managed information technology services (RMITS) , will attract the highest, that is, 23% increase in IT spending by SMBs through 2015, the firm mentions in its ‘2011 India Managed Services Study’.

Last year, Indian SMBs exhibited a reduced interest in buying IT equipment due to a drop in revenues, restricted cash flows and slow payment realization. With business environment becoming competitive and cost efficiency a priority, the operating expenses (opex) based managed services seem to be assuring several benefits such as cost effectiveness, better service levels, vendor management, minimum risks, and bundled offers to SMBs. RMITS, in specific, has assisted SMBs in keeping up with alerts and basic infrastructure maintenance, the research firm observes.

AMI finds that although most medium businesses (MBs or companies with 100 to 999 employees) have internal staff and resources, they are mostly mired in fixing snags on routine issues. “Indian MBs are turning to RMITS to assist them in keeping up with alerts and basic infrastructure maintenance, thus freeing their internal IT teams to manage more sophisticated solutions,” says Rati Ghose, market insights director at AMI-Partners.

AMI’s Ghose believes that managed services have helped SMBs with the thoroughness of service quality and financial viability. Implementation of managed services has allowed the Indian SMBs to better cope with their complex IT infrastructures and thereby to focus on other important IT tasks such as attending to security requirements.