News Feature | May 29, 2015

LogicNow: There's Discord Between Customers' Expectations And Solutions Providers' Delivery

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Customers’ Expectations And Solutions Providers’ Delivery

A disconcerting level of discord exists between what customers need and expect and what IT service providers actually deliver, according to new research from LogicNow. The study reveals that IT service providers are seriously misaligned with customers’ needs, meaning that they are missing out on vast opportunities.

For the report, The LogicNow Global IT Service Providers Harmony Report, LogicNow surveyed more than 1,300 IT departments and nearly 700 IT Service Providers in North America, UK, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Benelux, France, and Australia and New Zealand to measure global market needs and the extent to which they were being met.

Dr. Alistair Forbes, General Manager, LogicNow, said in the press release announcing the study that LogicNow is a proponents of the managed services business model — based on proactive rather than reactive services. “However, our Global IT Service Providers Harmony Report clearly shows that IT service providers need to be patient in their pursuit of this model and choose their timing carefully. Pushing strategic consultancy too early in the relationship gives an impression of under-valuing the immediate concern weighing heaviest on the customer’s mind. IT departments engage with service providers because they have a particular problem that needs solving. This must be addressed first to earn the opportunity of a strategic engagement later on.”
Among the key findings of the report:

  • Solutions Provider-Customer Relationships Are Viewed Differently: 64 percent of IT services providers were eager for customer relationships to move towards greater strategic consultancy while just 13 percent of IT departments felt that way. In fact, the remainder of respondents were split evenly between wanting no change at all, and actually wanting tactical, technical IT support instead.
  • Solutions Providers And Customers Have Different Goals: IT departments want better email security; better web protection; and better anti-virus, while IT service organizations emphasize prioritizing security consultancy and offering more proactive system updates and patching.
  • Solutions Providers Aren’t Billing The Way Customers Want: Three-quarters of IT departments want a single invoice to pay for managed security services including technology licenses and associated services combined. But almost half — 49 percent of IT Service Providers are invoicing for every technology individually, or on an ad hoc basis, and  two thirds report that they  are deliberately not planning to change their invoicing processes in the next 12 months.

Forbes commented, “The issue is the risk of getting the relationship off on the wrong foot and ultimately the amount of potential profit being left on the table by the mismatch between the priorities of service providers and IT departments.”

He points out that the good news is more closely aligning what your client needs and wants with what you provide is entirely within your control.

Download the Harmony white paper here.