In today’s digital world, the best companies use cutting-edge business applications to drive operations, serve customers, and maintain competitive advantage. But, these applications don’t look after themselves, and as such, need constant management to help businesses stay ahead, manage risk, and drive great outcomes.
This is where Application Management Services (AMS) comes into play, giving organizations a structured approach to maintain and optimize their application portfolio. For most companies, there’s a decision to be made to conduct application management in-house or use a third-party service provider to do the heavy lifting for them.
If you’re after some application management expertise, then this article is for you. We’ll dive into Application Management Services (AMS), including what they are, what’s included in a service, and how to choose the right model for you!
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What is an Application Management Service (AMS)?
Application Management Services are a range of different services, processes, and procedures designed to support, maintain, and enhance business applications throughout their life. Unlike traditional IT support models, AMS provides a holistic approach that goes beyond just managing applications, basic troubleshooting, and maintenance.
Modern AMS providers deliver continuous improvement, proactive monitoring, and strategic guidance to ensure applications remain aligned with business objectives and strategy. They handle everything from routine maintenance and updates to complex optimization projects and modernization initiatives.
This approach allows organizations to focus on core business activities while ensuring their application ecosystem operates at peak efficiency.
Find Application Management Services model that fits your needs
What’s Included in Application Managed Services?
Third-party Application Managed Services providers typically offer a comprehensive suite of services that address various aspects of application management, problem management, and infrastructure management. Let’s take a look at those areas in more detail.
Application Support and Maintenance
The first goal of an AMS is to provide day-to-day support activities such as incident management, bug fixes, light application development, and routine maintenance. This ensures applications remain stable and available to end-users.
Providers employ dedicated teams (with specialist skills and expertise) to monitor and manage applications, including handling user queries, troubleshooting issues, and implementing necessary patches and updates.
Read also: Discover the Best Application Management Support Models
Performance Monitoring and Optimization
Most services offered include performance monitoring, with advanced monitoring tools and analytics helping to track software systems performance, identify bottlenecks, and implement improvements.
By taking full responsibility of monitoring your applications, this proactive approach prevents issues before they impact business operations, ensuring optimal application performance, and reducing risk for critical software systems.
Security Management
Talking of reducing risk, AMS providers implement robust security measures, including regular vulnerability assessments, patch management, and security updates.
This ensures applications comply with industry standards and regulatory requirements, while protecting sensitive data and broader organizational security.
Enhancement and Innovation
Beyond maintenance, AMS providers work on continuous improvement initiatives that support changing businesses to meet their strategy objectives.
This includes implementing new applications, new features, optimizing existing functionality, and suggesting technological improvements to keep applications in line with market trends.
Documentation and Knowledge Management
The best providers on the Application Managed Service market employ good governance to keep everything above board.
For most, this manifests in comprehensive documentation of applications, processes, and procedures, ensuring consistency in service delivery and facilitating knowledge transfer. This includes maintaining technical documentation, user guides, and standard operating procedures.
The Business Benefits of Using an AMS Provider
So, we know what an AMS provider does, but how does it help your organisation? Whether you’re a large or small company, there are benefits to be had by using an AMS provider to manage your applications. Here are some of the most popular.
Cost Optimization
AMS helps organizations better predict and control IT costs through structured service-level agreements (SLAs) and transparent pricing models. By outsourcing application management, companies don’t have to rely on internal resources, leading to significant cost savings and a boost in productivity.
Enhanced Application Performance
With access to specialized expertise and advanced tools, AMS providers optimize application performance more effectively than most in-house teams. This results in improved user experience, reduced downtime, and better business outcomes.
Focus on Core Business
When AMS is outsourced to a third-party, it gives you more time to focus on your core business. By delegating application management to experts, organizations can redirect internal resources toward strategic initiatives that add greater value. This also allows companies to innovate and grow while ensuring their applications receive proper attention.
Access to Specialized Skills
AMS providers maintain teams of experts with diverse technical skills and experience across various technologies. This breadth of expertise would be difficult and expensive to maintain in-house, especially for smaller organizations.
Scalability and Flexibility
As businesses need to change, AMS providers can quickly scale services up or down to manage more cloud applications. This flexibility helps large businesses adapt to changing market conditions without the overhead of hiring or training additional staff.
The Different AMS Models Explained: In-House vs. Outsource vs. Managed Service
Application management can be handled in a number of different ways. Here are some of the key pros and cons of doing it yourself versus using a supplier.
In-House Management
This traditional model involves maintaining an internal IT team responsible for all application management tasks. While it offers direct control and immediate response capabilities, it can be expensive and limiting in terms of available expertise.
Advantages:
- Complete control over processes and priorities
- Direct communication with technical teams
- Deeper understanding of business context
Challenges:
- Higher fixed costs for staffing and infrastructure
- Limited access to specialized skills
- Difficulty scaling resources quickly
Outsourcing
The outsourcing model involves contracting external vendors for specific application management tasks. While using third-party organizations in this way can be cost-effective, it can lack the strategic partnership aspect of managed services.
Advantages:
- Lower costs compared to in-house teams
- Access to specific technical skills
- Flexibility in engagement models
Challenges:
- Less control over processes
- Potential communication barriers
- May lack strategic alignment
Managed Services
The managed services model combines many of the best aspects of both in-house and outsourcing models, offering a strategic partnership approach to application management.
Advantages:
- Strategic partnership focused on business outcomes
- Comprehensive service coverage
- Predictable costs with clear SLAs
- Access to broad expertise and best practices
Challenges:
- Requires strong vendor relationship management
- May have higher initial costs than pure outsourcing
- Dependency on service provider
Making The Right Choice: When To DIY vs. Getting Managed IT Support
But how do you choose the right model for you? Whether you’re a small or large company, making the right choice depends on a range of factors such as:
- Organization size and complexity
- Available budget and resources
- Strategic importance of applications
- Required service levels and response times
- Internal technical capabilities
- Number of critical issues
The most successful organizations often adopt a hybrid approach, maintaining some critical functions in-house while leveraging managed services for others. This allows them to maintain control over strategic applications while benefiting from external expertise and scalability where needed.
Thinking of Partnering Up? Here’s How We Can Help
At Inetum, our AMS+ capability is designed to help businesses like yours grow and thrive through expert application management. Specifically, we focus on delivering three core objectives: optimizing your run services, digitizing your maintenance portfolios, and improving the speed of your developments and deployments.
If you like the sound of that, find out how we can support your changing business needs, information technology strategy, and application estate by visiting our nearshoring website.
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