Technicans vs. IT Professionals

A recently read Charles Weaver's blog on MSP Alliance about how clients view your managed services practice. He makes an interesting point in distinguishing between technicians and IT professionals.

We see a lot of MSP's (managed service providers) who are focused on support your PCs and servers, but not skilled at providing business advisory services around IT. Check it out.

http://www.mspalliance.com/blogs/how-do-your-clients-view-your-managed-services-practice-0

Top 9 Reasons for IT Outsourcing

I'm always asked by clients and prospects to explain the value proposition for IT outsourcing. I've decided to put my thoughts on paper and have posted an article on the website.

http://www.vitale.com/Top-9-Reasons-Companies-Outsource

Upcoming IT Trends Event: April 2nd @ Vitale

Event Date: April 2, 2009

Who should attend: IT and Finance decision makers – CEO, CFO, Controller, CIO

All registrants will receive a complimentary copy of McKinsey’s whitepaper, Managing IT in a Downturn

Join Vitale Caturano for our quarterly event on transformational technology trends. This complimentary event will focus on the most effective ways to control operating expenses and evaluate capital purchasing decisions without increasing risk or sacrificing performance.

Sharepoint Focus Series - Feb 24th.

This is going to be a great event. Non technical people such as CEO, CFO, COO will also get a lot out of the topic.

Join Vitale Caturano for our premiere Focus Series event on how to maximize your SharePoint investment in today's marketplace with keynote delivered by Mauro Cardarelli, author of Essential SharePoint 2007 and Director of Portals & Collaboration at Vitale Caturano. Take advantage of this complimentary event to rev up your SharePoint usage in 2009.

http://www.vitale.com/sharepoint

New Blog Authors

Bill Kracunas and Nelson Lins will now be regular contributors to the blog. Bill leads Vitale's consulting practice and Nelson is our Service Delivery Manager.

Struggling Economy and Outsourcing

Recently read this article on Webcpa.com about other firms providing IT outsourcing (managed) services. The consensus is that all the downsizing in the economy has been good for managed service providers as companies are looking for ways to reduce IT costs through staff reduction -- but still need IT support.

Being part of a CPA firm, I found the section on supporting CPA firms very interesting. Sounds like they are good outsourcing targets because of the prolific applications and complexity. The reality is that there are only a handful of providers that can actually manage 60 client applications -- Vitale Caturano being one of them.

Also sounds like Vitale Caturano is among the few firms providing strategic advisory services in addition to the typical line up of managed service offerings.

http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=30533&pg=ros