Transparency is characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business problems, often times meaning absence of cloudiness, haziness, or muddiness (source: www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transparent). Avoid the ambiguity by partnering with a truly transparent service provider, one who openly shares information about your most mission critical IT systems.

Trust starts with transparency
So why is it so often in the world of IT, many managed service providers shy away from being fully transparent with their customers? When it comes to your most mission critical systems your internal team from the admin to C-levels should have full access and visibility to their IT systems, ensuring that your current IT landscape is fulfilling your company’s unique needs.

Why hide system performance or project documentation? You hire consultants for a specific skillset for outsourced managed IT services, so you need a 360 approach and trust with your consultants to receive accessibility and complete visibility into your systems. Be sure to ask these questions when you are choosing an IT managed service provider:

• How do they communicate with their clients? Directly or through a help desk?
• What is their SLA policy and how transparent are the communications regarding issues?
• Who are the consultants managing your systems and what are their qualifications? How do you contact them?
• What is their documentation process and how is that information shared with their clients?
• What monitoring and reporting tools do they have in place?
• How accessible are reports to you when requested?

Get in control of your systems
These days many service providers require companies to use certain processes, however how do you know if the process the outsourced partner uses aligns with the ones your company requires? Get in control of your critical IT systems with a transparent relationship. Eliminate the uneasy feeling of not being “in the know” of your IT landscape. Partner with a managed service provider that lets you always see what’s happening and allows you direct access to the necessary information to prove it.

Checklist for evaluating the transparency of your service provider
The following are critical areas where your IT managed service provider should be fully transparent; use this checklist as a guide when evaluating your next partner.

System performance
There are many ways to achieve a transparent relationship. It starts with delivering the services you are promised. Your IT outsourced partner should be confident enough to openly share on an ongoing basis via weekly, monthly, and quarterly review meetings of how your SAP systems are actively being managed with supporting documentation to back it up. Including having open dialogue about SLAs and how they are continuously met.

Communication
Your managed IT service provider should also have open communication with you, serving as an extension of your internal teams. This can be done through state-of-the-art tools such as a client portal that can serve as a hub for all communication by sharing critical documentation directly with you and allowing you direct access to systems performance reports, project plans or any other critical documents specific to your systems.

Direct access to consultants and documentation
Be sure to also have full transparency to the service you are receiving, by having direct access to talk with the consultants working on your systems. In addition, some leading service providers go as far as having a message board with a live chat feature inside their client portal, where you can ask questions in real-time directly to your dedicated consultants that are working on your unique systems.

Time to resolution
We all know that time is money, so the more transparent your IT managed service provider can be with you when issues arise is critical. Having an open and collaborative communication channel with clients can greatly decrease the time it takes to get to a resolution when both the clients and consultants are working together. This open line of communication will help your consultants find that needle in the haystack faster to get it corrected, minimizing precious downtime.

Work requests
Transparency is also key when handling daily requests. You need a service provider that has a accurate, and transparent process in place when receiving incoming requests. Whether it is tracking of daily requests to handling large projects requests. Having visibility to see open cases, and how those requests are being handled in terms of speed, accuracy, and responsiveness can be critical when you have a large organization with multiple requests with vary degrees of severities that are to be managed at any given time.

Project management
Be sure your service provider is transparent when completing project work. There are a lot of moving parts to a project with even more tasks that need to be completed in order to meet deadlines. Having transparency throughout the life of the project can save time and money, by having full access to key milestones, including completion percentage, scope of work, deadlines, and budget will make complex projects that much more easy. Make sure your partner is transparent by making all of this information readily available and and i able to show you whenever you need it.

The T&C’s
At Managecore we’re founded on the principles we call the T&C’s, Trust/Transparency and Communication/Collaboration. We strongly believe that without these core principles our clients cannot truly build a long lasting relationship with us. Managecore embodies transparency in everything we do, through a truly collaborate and ongoing relationship with our clients with open channels of communication via our state-of-the-art client portal that provides a personalized approach to customer service. We have the confidence to optimally manage any SAP system and provide the support our customers not only need, but deserve.

Ready to start a transparent relationship with the SAP and IT experts of Managecore? Contact us today!

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We make what's complicated, easy. Our thought leadership approach starts by working directly with you to weigh the options and find the right solutions for your company. We are able to minimize costs and optimize your SAP/IT investment through our proven solutions. We're founded on the principles we call the T&C's of Managecore, Trust/Transparency and Communication/Collaboration.

Strong SAP expertise combined with state-of-the-art technology allows us to constantly watch and maintain your SAP and IT environments. Operations are routine. Issues are nonexistent.