Pro and Cons of Managed Service Provision

[Snuffkins]

Good afternoon,

 

I've been looking into this for quite some time now. I was wondering what everyone views were both positive and negative for a full managed service provision within a school environment?

 

I can see the benefit for a number of services being outsourced and creating a hybrid service of in-house and outsourced, but which services\facilities would you outsource and which wouldn't you and why?

[Pyroman]

Search any threads for BSF and feel the rage!

[Snuffkins]

If i could do a site search i would ...

[plexer]

Use google.

 

Ben

[Pyroman]

Let me google that for you

[supawat1]

Let me google that for you

[witch]

Depends what you mean

I am a lone, part-time tech and as such we pay an external company to give us phone support (when I am not here or edugeek fails me!). They come in once a month for 2 hours just to help with any tricky stuff or things that one person would take hours to do. We can call on them for things like server installs - I am term-time only so can never really do this sort of thing, and it works well.

[SpuffMonkey]

Having worked on both sides - I can tell you that the devil is in the detail. I don't think there's any reason that a managed service couldn't be OK - but negotiating and tying down a contract that ensures that it will happen is beyond the skill set of anyone I've ever met in education.

 

The other problem you get is that once you've let your skilled workers go - if your maintenance company doesn't perform or goes bust - you're really up the creek as you've no in house skills to get it all sorted out and you're into the sweaty hands of "consultants" brrrr

[catshilllearning]

I have worked in a school managed service environment for 14 years and now work for myself as an independent consultant. I'd be happy to share my experiences with you. It is not as black and white as you might think.

[Gibson335]

Immediacy can be an issue. If people are used to being able to get simple things done quickly, this can often be a problem with managed services - in a classroom situation the need for 'here and now' support can be crucial at times.

[catshilllearning]

Immediacy can be an issue. If people are used to being able to get simple things done quickly, this can often be a problem with managed services - in a classroom situation the need for 'here and now' support can be crucial at times.

True but of course "here" does not always mean "now".