Syncro today made an edition of an IT service management (ITSM) platform originally designed for managed service providers (MSPs) available for internal IT teams.
Company CEO Michael George said that the overall goal is to provide internal IT teams with a platform that makes it simpler to co-manage IT environments alongside an IT services provider.
The Syncro ITSM platform is designed specifically for small to medium businesses (SMBs) that run Windows applications. At its core is a scripting engine packaged with a library of curated scripts that makes it simpler to automate a range of IT workflows. It also makes use of artificial intelligence (AI) to classify workflows in a way that helps improve response times.
The average SMB today relies heavily on external service providers, many of which have adopted a platform such as Synchro to manage workflows across multiple customers. Syncro is now making it easier for external service providers and internal IT teams to standardize on the same ITSM platform, said George.
Historically, there has often been tension between internal IT teams and external services providers that were often viewed as an existential threat to the existence of an internal IT team. However, as IT environments have become more distributed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s become more apparent that internal IT teams are not able to manage what have become more distributed IT environments without the aid of external service providers, said George.
Many IT organizations now routinely rely on multiple external service providers that have expertise in specific areas, such as cybersecurity, he added.
Each IT team will naturally need to decide to what degree to rely on external IT service providers, but many organizations continue to limit the number of full-time employees they want to hire. In addition, it’s all but impossible for a small team of IT professionals to become experts in every type of IT technology their organization may need to consume.
Regardless of how IT services are managed, many SMBs need to upgrade the ITSM platforms they currently employ, said George. Many of them continue to rely on home-grown frameworks that do little more than provide an IT professional with remote access to a Windows system, he noted.
Ultimately, SMBs have never been more dependent on IT to function. In the age of digital business, that dependency on IT is only going to increase. The challenge SMBs face now is not only making sure that internal employees have access to IT services, but also extending the reach of those IT services out to customers that now expect to be able to routinely access a range of digital services. The days when SMBs could get by relying solely on a small internal team of system administrators is now largely over.
In fact, the difference between success and failure for many SMBs comes down to their ability to leverage IT investments to compete more efficiently against larger rivals that are not nearly as agile, simply because they continue to rely too much on outdated applications and systems.
