SIGMA

About IT Outsourcing

Challenges of IT Outsourcing

Effective IT infrastructure is critical to the success or profitability of any organisation. Yet IT is a support function, not necessarily part of an organisation's core activities and competencies. As stakeholders demand more from IT, managers need to understand what return they are getting from their investments in technology and whether that technology improves their service delivery or competitive advantage.

Across many industries, users have increasingly diverse IT requirements, working in ever more heterogeneous technology environments, while demands for consistently high levels of service continually rise. These conditions place greater expectations on managers to streamline the IT function, and ensure the necessary cost visibility and controls are present. The resulting lack of specialist knowledge in different fields can lead to reactive approaches to IT support, inconsistent service levels, and unpredictable costs - all of which can adversely affect focus on the core business and the bottom line.

Why Outsource to Sigma?

Sigma offers industry-leading services at sensible and predictable costs. Ranging from IT support, system design and build, through to complete IT ownership transfer, all of Sigma's support solutions have guaranteed service level agreements (SLAs). Services include:

  • centralized help desk
  • full desktop management
  • server and other hardware support and maintenance
  • Mac, Wintel, Linux, and Unix expertise
  • network hosting and management
  • data backup and disaster recovery
  • remote and on-site engineer consultation
  • user account management
  • design and build project management
  • mobile connectivity for remote workforces
  • total cost of ownership auditing
  • asset change and management

Benefits of Sigma IT

Key benefits of using Sigma as your IT Support partner include:

  • cost reduction
  • expanded scope of service
  • service continuity
  • access to knowledge and experience
  • predictable IT expenditure
  • flexible staffing

Cost Reduction

Strong IT skills are expensive. The added costs of salaries, pensions, training, and management overheads usually exceed £30,000 per employee. Sigma offers flexible support, as our clients require it, to keep costs low.

Expanded Scope of Service

Sigma can offer clients a 24x7 service. A small in-house IT team cannot effectively offer this.

Service Continuity

Sigma guarantees continuity of support, eliminating client worries about covering periods of absence.

Access to Knowledge and Experience

Our large number of technical support engineers covers all of the technologies that businesses rely on. As we develop new technology solutions to meet our clients' needs we share the benefits of our experience and newfound knowledge.

Predictable IT Expenditure

Understanding and forecasting IT expenditure is critical for effective financial planning. Sigma provides a fixed IT support budget and helps identify those related costs that Organisations face, but don't always anticipate, yearly - such as software maintenance, anti-virus updates, communication links, backup media, toner, upgrades, and so on.

Flexible Staffing

With a fixed internal headcount clients have little flexibility. Sigma can offer additional people on short notice to cope with peak workloads - as needed. Sigma can also act as an extension to an in-house IT team - whether clients need access to niche skills for a few hours or additional technical expertise to cover peak workloads, holidays, or sickness.

Service Delivery Options

How is our service delivered? Sigma maintains a single point of contact, through the Sigma Technical Assistance Centre (S-TAC), which gives clients access to qualified on-site engineering resource plus remote services - for monitoring, reporting, alerting, and management. Clients benefit from our use of industry-recognized methodologies for problem resolution, our management of third-party suppliers, and our remote control desktop support that enables quick problem solving with minimal workplace intrusion.

Through service level agreements (SLAs), Sigma delivers support to clients via the following options:

  • total infrastructure management - ownership and management of all IT systems and personnel on a fixed-price contract either by on-site staff or by remote access to engineer resources
  • engineer and help desk support - first, second, and third line resources for remote problem resolution by trained engineers working with a problem management system and automated problem escalation procedures

Case Studies: IT Outsourcing Cost Reduction

Sigma's challenge was to enhance the existing group-wide IT infrastructure and reduce costs at a time of rapid expansion

See how we helped create substantial savings ...

Contact us about IT Outsourcing:

Harry Madaan, Business Development Director harry.madaan@sigma-group.co.uk 0845 890 8666 ext 1078