The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to seek out fast, effective solutions to digitally enabling their operations and workforce, as well as opportunities to reduce costs in response to revenue losses caused by lockdown restrictions and quarantining. PBT Group believes managed services and solutions will not only be able to support short-term recovery but will provide sustainable business benefits in the long-term.
The managed solutions environment in IT infrastructure investment has seen strong growth in recent years. In fact, the global managed services market is expected to grow from USD 178.5 billion in 2019 to USD 309.4 billion by 2025. Given the pressures driving this growth even before the pandemic hit, businesses have been looking for more agility and flexibility in how they provision their IT services, along with how they run their operations. This is resulting in the support function of managed solutions evolving across all areas of the managed services stream.
“Managed services and solutions in the IT infrastructure and data solutions space allow businesses to invest in technology products, services and platforms, as and when they need to, to suit their growth needs. And this is achieved without incurring the onerous costs associated with buying and customising technology, recruiting and training in-house specialists, while also allowing for upscaling or downscaling technology needs according to changing business requirements,” says Ken Wood, CEO for PBT Group South Africa and Europe.
“Now add to this the immediate pandemic-related pressure to embrace remote working capability, and we at PBT Group see a real opportunity for businesses to make the shift to remotely managed services and solutions, and to do so sustainably, with the right partner,” adds Wood.
With in-depth knowledge of data solutions and experience that spans more than two decades, PBT Group prides itself on being technology agnostic data specialists that offer custom-made Data and Analytics services and solutions. This enhances the Group’s ability to provide end-to-end solutions to valued clients, giving them the benefit of a comprehensive service platform for their business success. The company has over 550 data specialists working on client projects across 27 countries on 3 continents, including in Africa, Australia and Europe.
Though embedding managed services resources in the client’s on-site team has long been considered critical to the success of this kind of partnership, PBT Group has also seen great success in implementing managed services partnerships remotely.
The Group’s consultants are certainly au fait with the benefits that remote working arrangements can offer clients. Over the last decade, the company has delivered a wide range of services from data analysis, solutions architecture, adaptive data modelling, data engineering, testing, implementation and overall project management to clients in Africa and the Middle East.
Over the last 3-years, PBT Group has expanded its remote working experience to its European operations as well and, with strategic partnerships signed in 2019 with companies in the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany, the company is well-positioned to support data-related projects across Western Europe, remotely.
Wood indicates that managed services offer cost-efficiencies and flexibility that made good business sense before COVID-19. “We believe remotely managed services, given the change the environment has brought about, will offer businesses the edge they will need to not only navigate through the pandemic, but to continue sustainability once it passes. We are not only well-versed in delivering remotely, having tried and tested this model over the years, but we’re able to help our clients adapt to this new normal while ensuring their data needs are met. The PBT Group managed services model allows the necessary flexibility to be customisable for each client’s specific needs”.
The value proposition of a managed services arrangement resides in increased productivity, a reduced management overhead, the flexibility of capacity on demand, as well as the potential to include knowledge transfer and client enablement. If you are looking to partner with Data Specialists who can provide the right data solutions and expertise through a managed services model that considers remote capability, then look no further.
