The main benefits 

Apart from the positive experiences of Cantono’s many managed-service clients, recent industry surveys raise the following as key factors driving organisations to have their IT systems managed on their behalf.

Predictable costs
A major concern of IT Directors and managers is to budget accurately and to manage resources within their budgets. Changing user needs, and the central role played by IT in the functioning of the organisation often mean significant unplanned demands are made on IT time and resources.

Outsourcing all or part of IT makes it easier to cope with these demands. Cantono’s hosting fees are typically billed on a quarterly basis. This makes IT budgetary forecasting far simpler. Options for customised, flexible, and pre-agreed pricing models are also available – delivering welcome predictability to the servicing of dynamic business needs.

The service to be delivered, the measurements of success and the cost are agreed between Cantono and its clients through a business and service level agreement.

Business Failure Protection
In the new economy, organisations of every kind have become increasingly dependent upon their IT systems. With pressure from the marketplace e-commerce in all its guises has become the norm. New line-of business applications and systems have allowed organisations to introduce unprecedented levels of computerisation into their daily operations and 24x7 business operation is the expectation rather than the exception. In consequence, technical infrastructure is coming under increasing scrutiny.

The transformation has dramatically increased the importance of systems availability. Any downtime can seriously cripple business operations and increase costs enormously. Lack of systems availability can also mean significant lost revenues and even a weakened market position.

Cantono provides a full service to ensure high system availability for our clients. To do this we use leading-technology to both mitigate and ensure recovery to meet these challenging needs. With data centres close to the City of London and beyond the M25, it is well-placed to provide a comprehensive service.

Specialist Support and Skills
Most companies offer piecemeal ad-hoc support to their user community relying on the availability and diligence of general IT staff to resolve issues as they occur. Many companies have systems which require skills which are expensive or scarce, or both  – for example for legacy and heritage systems

Due to natural staff attrition and market conditions, maintaining an up-to-date, optimum team of skilled professionals is becoming an expensive task. At Cantono we constantly add to our experience and expertise by working with many clients facing similar challenges; we represent the most efficient source of technical expertise covering all platforms and operating environments. By relying on Cantono’s pool of expertise, our clients are able to avoid the significant costs associated with chasing technology and bridging internal skills shortages.

Cantono has critical mass in technology know-how; we therefore have the breadth and depth of skills required to meet the challenge. In particular we can offer expertise in heritage systems and potentially help customers migrate to newer platforms - thereby reducing risks.

Security of systems and data
The data centre represents the core of an enterprise's IT capability and its secure operation is therefore crucial to business performance. Increasing, supply chain systems integration, pressure to implement wireless technologies and the growth of email mean that problems can be caused by forces outside of a company's direct control adding further emphasis to the need for organisations to apply rigorous internal security policies.

Securing business systems from outside attack is a task that requires relentless vigilance. Patching newly highlighted security threats needs to be almost immediate. Internet access, email and the ‘slightly’ increased sophistication of the user community greatly increase the chance of a virus’ gaining a foothold; and the proliferation of spam emails causes inconvenience to users and an unneeded storage overhead.

Cantono brings these together to provide full data security and network security, giving you the peace of mind that you need.

Cantono maintains security for systems for many companies in the front-line from such attacks. As well as disaster recovery resilience (as described above) Cantono provides perimeter security from virus attacks, data encryption and other proven techniques to maintain integrity of client’s data.

Allowing focus on new systems development
The load imposed on the IT department in operational activities looking after existing systems means that there is little time and resource to develop new systems required to support the business.

By letting Cantono’s experts manage their daily operational functions our clients are free to focus on their own core operation; freeing crucial resources to concentrate on areas of IT that add strategic value to their business such as process automation, CRM systems, supplier integration or client interface development. With internal IT resources re-focused in this way, Cantono clients are better able to fulfil the needs of their own customers – delivering improved, market oriented products and services and responding more rapidly to changing market demands.

Cantono works closely with the IT department to develop a tailored proposal which frees the client’s IT resources to concentrate on ‘strategic’ work while Cantono supports the current environment.

Flexibility and Change
No business stands still. We understand that both the client’s business requirements and available technical solutions can change remarkably over just a few years. Therefore, companies need the flexibility to make changes or develop their systems to keep pace with these changes.

Flexibility, scalability and ongoing enhancements in service delivery are therefore critical factors in selecting an outsourcing partner. Time after time, our existing customers cite our ability to remain synchronised with their business aims as one of the major benefits of our solutions.

Throughout the course of a contract, both Cantono and the client will be able to identify incremental enhancements as part of their general management processes. Such changes are discussed at regular Service Reviews.

Cantono also works with clients to identify step change improvements - strategic changes in the utilisation of new technology that have a major impact on the overall role and commercial performance of IT for the client.

By embracing change and, moreover, by adopting it as a standard operating procedure Cantono and our clients have formed longterm partnerships.