Managed services magic

With the IT skills shortage, and official figures showing the New Zealand labour force at an all time low, IT automation software provider Kaseya believes managed services are the way to grow business without having to hire more engineers and technicians.Kaseya has been holding seminars on how its automated managed services can position IT solution providers for success. It covers key areas, such as how having a fixed price per device model is much more effective than a break/fix model.Tim Dickinson, Regional Manager for Kaseya, believes the number one problem in New Zealand and Australia is hiring the right technicians. “It’s next to impossible,” he said.“The key thing with managed services is that you don’t have to hire more technicians to grow your business,” he said. Kaseya provides an out-tasking service which offers 24/7 monitoring and remediation, giving technicians the ability to monitor more machines with less work.Dickinson told The Channel that proactive management and proactive scripting actually prevent problems from happening in the first place: “Being able to remote control a machine certainly solves a lot of travel time. If you can reduce the cost of actually having to service that customer, it will increase profits.”With more SME customers looking for enterprise quality service, Kaseya is aiming to help the mid-tier systems integrators offer “really good value added services” to their customers.