Managed Services Is Where the Business Value of Technology Is Created

Unlike ink, paper, the abacus, the Xerox machine, or other office equipment from the past, digital is innovating every day. Digital transformation can be powerful in enabling you to take your organization to the next level, but it will likely require the right expertise to translate innovation into KPIs and business benefits you can count on.

We are proud of the many long-standing clients who have worked with us in achieving their business goals and ambitions. For over a decade, Sikich has provided IT managed services to help our clients achieve the best possible business outcomes from their IT investments. Across industries and company models, we assist you in ensuring that your technology foundation is secure, scalable, reliable, and responsive, so it can deliver an excellent user experience.

Continuous, managed services on the ground and in the cloud

Until recently, most clients relied on our IT managed services to support on-premises servers, networks, and applications, but that is changing because more and more organizations transition to the cloud. For many clients, we first help them transition computing workloads to the cloud in an efficient, smooth process. Then we take care of those cloud environments – much like we did for their on-premises workloads. Experienced Sikich team members provide network operations center support for cloud workloads, resolve service tickets, share best practices, and help our clients plan technology for the future.

If you collaborate with Sikich, you can do so at any stage of your technology journey. We also happily support companies that are already in the cloud, but are looking for expert management and support, or want to refine their cloud strategy for better outcomes.

In the Microsoft Dynamics arena, some of you have recently transitioned their Microsoft Dynamics NAV or GP systems to the Microsoft Azure cloud with our assistance. Now these companies continue to receive much the same kind of Sikich IT managed-services support they have enjoyed for their on-premises systems.

Strategic perspective and end-to-end IT management

One aspect of technology matters greatly in the cloud, but much less so when it comes to on-premises applications and workloads: the relationship between your organization and Microsoft. If you are one of our clients, we manage this with your interests in mind.

Sikich is a Tier-One Microsoft Azure Cloud Solution Provider (CSP). We help you learn about relevant Azure resources available, and assist you in taking advantage of those Azure services that your organization can benefit from. We handle all licensing and invoicing for the Microsoft Azure services you use. We provide maintenance and support to ensure continuity for your cloud workloads. When you need any assistance for your cloud applications and services, you can get in touch with us and talk to your Sikich team at our network operations center.

When you partner with the Sikich cloud managed services team, we assign one of our executive team members as your virtual CIO. This person is accountable for the services we provide and works with you to improve cloud service consumption outcomes. We review and address your immediate concerns, but we also maintain a holistic view of your complete cloud and on-premises environment. We always aim to ensure that your cloud applications run at optimal performance levels and meet your goals for individual and organizational productivity. We recommend adjustments or upgrades, such as processing power or storage, and implement them for you.

When is the best time to make the move?

Every organization needs to find its own path to the cloud. For most companies, it doesn’t make sense to move all computing workloads to the cloud at the same time. Instead, we may collaborate with them to first move the applications that can benefit the most from the advantages of the cloud, such as always-on reliability, better security, advanced analytics, or practically limitless scalability. Priority workloads for the cloud are often those where users need anytime, anywhere access.

It often happens that the cloud makes for an easy upgrade when new features in a business-critical application don’t even appear in its on-premises version anymore. In another common scenario, getting the best performance from your applications may require an on-premises server and network upgrade, and it may be questionable whether the investment is worth the results, as compared to using cloud resources. We collaborate with you in thinking through all the dependencies and requirements, and in planning all the steps involved with cloud migrations, based on your priorities.

Cloud vs. on-premise is not an either/or decision

Some Sikich clients meet their computing needs in the hybrid cloud, where certain applications and resources are in the cloud and others remain on-premise. If the integrations and architectures are designed well, this can be a seamless, efficient infrastructure. Most users are not worried about where their data and applications live, as long as organizational security and compliance is maintained, access is easy, and the systems respond well. We design and help companies implement continuous, hybrid environments that consistently provide the reliability, security, and performance that businesses depend on.

In doing so, we do our best to minimize technical complexity, using the foundation of the public cloud to enable private-cloud services for your organization. We use proven architectures that we know to be robust and flexible. Active Directory in the cloud, supporting Azure workloads, integrates seamlessly with your corporate on-premises Active Directory structure. In terms of user experience, when configured correctly to mitigate latency and responsiveness, the organization’s end user community can’t tell whether information or software capabilities come from a cloud data center or your on-premises server in the same building.

Would it be worth your while to explore how Sikich cloud managed services could help you run a productive, growing, resource-efficient business? Send us a note, and we can connect!