IT service providers are not focusing on the needs of their customers: The main discrepancies in what is offered and what is actually needed lie in the type of service and billing of services.
While IT service providers prioritise their security consulting services and want to supply more system updates and patches, these services come at the bottom of the list for IT departments, which primarily want greater e-mail security and improved Internet and anti-virus protection. The surveys, conducted by LogicNow in over 1,300 IT departments and at almost 700 IT service providers in North America, Europe and Australia, also show that providers and customers have very different priorities. The most important factors for IT departments are good prices and cost benefits, while for IT service providers, it is the biggest possible range of services and competencies.
A transparent cost structure is also more important for user companies than for providers: Over a third of the IT departments surveyed would like to receive a regular single invoice for all the services used; but almost half of IT service providers do not offer this and instead issue invoices for each individual service as soon as it is provided. (Source: LogicNow/bs)