Is Managed Services the Right Option for You After Implementing DocuSign?
Adopting a new technology is a long-term solution to problems your company or department may be facing. DocuSign’s Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) accelerates your business, provides increased compliance, and more efficiency, but, like any other platform and service, it needs to be managed and regularly maintained.
There are two popular routes to take: in-house staffing and employing a managed services provider or MSP. For some, in-house staffing can make sense, but, especially for small to mid-size companies, using a managed service ends up being the smartest, most cost-effective way to maintain technology.
Pros & Cons of In-House Staffing
In-house staffing for IT solutions was the only option, way back when. Despite it being a somewhat “old” concept, there are still pros to having in-house IT, which can be simulated but not quite identically remade in outsourced teams.
Pros for In-House Staffing:
- They’re team members. Who knows your business better than the people on your teams? In-house teams know the infrastructure, they have a rapport with different business groups, and, because they’re so ensconced in that day-to-day, they may be able to come up with uniquely creative solutions for problems.
- They’re already onsite. A lot of problems can be handled remotely these days, especially with cloud-native software, but having an IT specialist two cubicles down or just across the office is a difficult thing to compete with when it comes to immediacy.
- The team is under your management. Any time a team is under your management, it offers more control for response times. You have greater insight into what’s happening because they’re right in front of you.
Cons of In-House Staffing
- There’s no way around it – in-house staffing is often prohibitively expensive. IT professionals have very competitive wages and it’s no wonder, right? It takes a special person to get 10 calls a day about a computer or program issue which, when they go to troubleshoot, “just isn’t happening right now.” Salaries get even higher when looking for specialties or when paying for unconventional hours, like weekends or after 5 pm.
- You have to go big or go outsource. Depending on your team’s size in relation to your company size, things can really pile up. Bugs and patch fixes, this issue, that issue, it takes time, and if your team doesn’t have a good project manager and enough people, tickets will pile up and the backlog will get too extensive to manage.
Pros & Cons of Managed Services
Having an expert DocuSigner on staff isn’t usually cost-effective or necessary. If your implementation is done well (with appropriate training for the people who use it), outsourcing can be the ideal situation. Sometimes, there’s a bit of confusion over what managed services is and isn’t, though.
Managed services does:
- Complement existing staff to help meet business needs
- Provide affordable, predictable monthly costs
- Put experts at your fingertips to maintain and update technology environments as needed
Managed services does not:
With that ground work done, there are both pros and cons to managed services, just like with everything else.
Pros of Managed Services
- Predictable, affordable costs. Especially when compared to staffing in-house, it is far more accessible to outsource IT services for specialized programs like DocuSign.
- You can leverage a team of experts at that same flat rate. Managed services teams consist of a variety of individuals who all bring their own expertise – rather than paying the cost of 10 salaries at or exceeding 80k, you’re getting that knowledge for a fraction of the price.
- There’s a constant incentive to provide benefits. Since this is a business transaction, your managed services team wants to resolve any issues you have as quickly and amiably as possible – they need to keep you and your teams satisfied with their service.
- By off-loading IT management, your team can focus on your business. Unless your business is IT management, it makes sense to you have your employees focus on bringing value to your core service – whatever that may be.
Cons of Managed Services
- They’re not in the office down the hall. It’s always going to be a different dynamic when you’re outsourcing versus in-house staffing. Pivoting to different problems beget different conversations, responses will take slightly longer than an in-house team, and you won’t have the same level of oversight.
The cons for managed services are really, well, manageable, honestly. Setting up meetings and accountability measures, agreeing to communication standards, and vetting the team upfront can appease most (if not all) of outsourcing issues. The other way to mitigate issues with managed services teams happens before any sort of service starts – you have to find the right scope and fit for what you and your business needs.
How to Choose the Right Managed Services Provider
Choosing the right company to manage your services is all about asking the right questions. The secret about managed services isn’t so much a secret anymore, but the fact of that matter is, most managed services providers (MSPs) offer very similar prices. This doesn’t mean you should forego getting quotes, but don’t be surprised if they’re all remarkably similar.
The focus for choosing an MSP needs to be around business maturity, referrals, and the minutia of what’s included in packages. This is all about asking the right questions.
- What metrics do you use to assess speed, reliability, and overall performance?
- Do you offer customized solutions for different businesses regarding growth plans and achievable goals?
- Will you have access to my data? If so, what methods do you use to protect data?
- Do you employ a dedicated staff or ad-hoc?
- Can I meet the team members providing my support?
- What industry credentials or certifications does your company and staff carry?
- Will you provide references as phone numbers?
- How is support provided?
And those are just for starters. When choosing an MSP, ask any and all questions. No question is too small or too large and you’ll want to ensure that your future MSP has no problems answering.
Spaulding Ridge DocuSign Managed Services
We’re proud to be a DocuSign Platinum Partner and to have established the world’s first dedicated Agreement Cloud practice. We’ve served clients from all different industries across the world, and we have the benefit of hearing about every type of problem, like how internal teams are struggling with workflow management, about spending too much time on internal processes, or that they are having trouble hiring a full-time administrator.
Our DocuSign Managed Services alleviates these challenges by delivering a readily available resource team to deliver on requests such as new user setup, reporting assistance, group creation and security, template modifications, updates to SFDC, and other post Go-Live support. Our team of experts can be called upon to create training documentation and other general maintenance to keep end users up-to-date and confident in their implementation, as well as much more.
Companies leverage Spaulding Ridge because we drive ROI for their cloud investments. With Spaulding Ridge DocuSign Managed Services, our clients have achieved an average of 30-40% annual savings. If you’re interested in learning more about our DocuSign Managed Services, reach out to me at [email protected].
About Spaulding Ridge
An award-winning provider of Cloud solutions and advisory services, Spaulding Ridge helps leading companies deploy Best-in-Cloud™ solutions on a global scale. Spaulding Ridge enables organizations to accelerate operational efficiency, drive digital transformation, and increase competitive advantage.
Spaulding Ridge partners with digitally savvy companies to help:
- Finance to gain control: Increase top-line revenue, gross margins, and profits through better insight. Connect financial planning to strategy and automate financial close processes.
- Sales to increase productivity: Manage quota and territories more consistently and effectively, automate customer contracts and onboarding.
- Operations to drive efficiency: Improve supply chain agility, automate strategic sourcing and purchasing, deliver superior customer service experiences.
