Dimension Data is a company that offers an extensive managed services portfolio includes several globally standardised managed services products in specific technology domains – including networks, data centres, security, visual communications, unified communications and collaboration and contact centres. Youssef Fawaz, Managing Director, Dimension Data Middle East discusses the company’s focus

Discuss portfolio of Managed services that Dimension Data provides globally and in the region?

Dimension Data’s support, managed, and IT outsourcing lines of services are closely interrelated. We use the same platforms, systems, processes and delivery teams to deliver all three service types.

Our lines of service portfolios include both standard (‘productised’) services and customised services. Dimension Data’s services portfolio is replicated globally, which is a unique offer for our clients spanning not just locally, but also globally.  Dimension Data’s support, managed and IT outsourcing services portfolio includes IT Outsourcing spanning Transition and transformation, service aggregation & cross functional services across the network communications tower, the data centre tower, the end user compute tower, the contact centre tower & BPO.

Managed Services include IT service management, assessments and consulting, across enterprise networks, security infrastructure, Cisco unified communications, Microsoft Lync, Data Centre, Contact Centre and Custom services per client.

Support Services, include IT support, assessments and consulting for Uptime Maintenance, Uptime Support, Insite predictive support and Insite pre-emptive support.  Dimension Data also includes multi vendor service management and contract aggregation on behalf of our clients.

What is the demand scenario for various Managed services that you provide regionally?

The demand varies from country to country.  In response to the UAE, Dimension Data sees much demand for support services, that is, for the support of technology devices.  The requirement for Managed Services, that is, for the management of process outcomes is still not in high demand locally.  A focus on moving from a pure support contract to a managed services contract could add significant value to a clients’ business.

You offer standardized services in 6 domains while also giving the option for custom services. Discuss if customers regionally prefer the standard modules or whether they opt for custom ones?

Our experience in the local market is that clients are opting in for standard support services, mainly focused on SLA management and commitment, and not exploring the benefits attributed to custom services or managed services.  Currently, the requirements most clients have are focused on support services for the support of technology devices.  Most clients usually predefine this.  Dimension Data is able to further extract benefits to the IT estate for our clients through custom services, or through offering our managed services portfolio.

What are the Managed services you provide for datacenters in this region? Does it cover both large and smaller sized datacenters?

Dimension Data focuses on small, medium and large data centres for our clients – as long as the benefit to the business is realized.  Locally, Dimension Data includes the management of the physical data centre infrastructure as part of the managed services offered in the Data Centre Space.  Dimension Data’s managed services within the data centre includes the management of infrastructure such as servers, messaging, print & file servers, storage management, legacy/mid range servers, identity management and SQL database services.  Dimension Data also offers managed virtual infrastructure services to our clients.  In addition to this, Dimension Data’s Managed Cloud Platform offers our client expertise in deploying fully managed cloud platforms including private, hybrid and public cloud services.

Are enterprise customers comfortable with the idea of outsourcing such services? Which verticals do you find most proactive in the region in terms of adopting such services?

There is a demand for these services across multiple verticals.  By adopting these services our clients benefit by extracting benefits that include the exploitation of the data centre infrastructure – to the strategic advantage of their business, the realisation of the return on investment expected from a data centre technology environments, more efficient deployment of IT staff; access to the best skills in the market, providing a clear path to the cloud, a single point of contact, a proactive approach to service delivery, a consistent service delivery due to alignment of all services to the IT Instrastructure Library (ITIL) and flexible service levels that enable our clients to choose the service level that their budget and business requirements matches.

Are there customers regionally who you offer services across all the 6 domains that you focus on?

There are no current clients locally that procure services from Dimension Data across all the six domains.  Many of our clients explore support service engagements with Dimension Data in the Enterprise network, security and unified communications space.  As the market moves to the need for commercial outcomes and transformation, we expect to see more IT outsource engagement, spanning all domains, with regional client engagements.

Discuss any recent or expected announcements around Managed Services from Dimension Data?

Dimension Data announced that it will launch Enterprise Mobility-as-a-Service (EMaaS), signalling its intent to provide a suite of cloud-based end-user computing services on a global basis. EMaaS establishes the platform for the group’s future initiatives that will see Dimension Data announce increased functionality and feature sets that assist enterprise clients to deal with their rapidly changing end user computing requirements.

Dimension Data’s EMaaS offering is an integrated enterprise mobility management service that provides organisations with the ability to deliver comprehensive policy-based, device-independent, mobile device management, mobile expense management, integration to the enterprise and underpinned by true cloud principles of automation and consumption-based commercials.

The service, which utilises a cloud-based consumption model, enables organisations to rapidly scale deployments while easily managing the complex environment of mobile devices, data access and expense management. Due to the complex nature of mobility deployments, the EMaaS offering is complemented by Dimension Data’s Systems Integration and Professional Services competencies and addresses the full spectrum of an organisation’s enterprise mobility needs.