In today’s economic environment, organizations are scrutinizing ROI from their network investments and looking at ways to cut costs, including deploying more applications to improve operations and generate revenue, using next-generation end-user equipment that requires greater IT application specialization, and outsourcing this specialization or incorporated more training.

In addition, there is a greater focus on virtualization, cloud computing, and unified access. Organizations are increasingly turning to managed service providers for managed network services that address these developments.

When a company outsources network management, it assigns some or all of the management of its network infrastructure, applications, and security to networking experts, such as service providers, systems integrators, or value-added resellers. Outsourcing network management enables the organization to support more requirements with its resources, or even to cut costs. In addition, it frees up internal IT resources so they can focus on strategic revenue-generating initiatives.

In choosing a managed services provider, a company must base its selection on certain key criteria, including scalability, 24/7 support, service-level agreements on parameters that will help the company achieve its objectives, and a fast, efficient implementation.

A recent implementation by Spacenet improved costs and efficiencies for Regis Corp., a leader in the global beauty industry. To meet the requirements of new corporate applications while maintaining a focus on network efficiency and cost savings, Regis is implementing a new CPE management solution at each location, as well as a fully managed network service. It selected Spacenet to provide managed network services enabled by the Prysm Pro appliance, which supports automatic hybrid switching between wireline and wireless technologies for network backup, integrated Wi-Fi hot spot services, integrated analog telephone adapter for VoIP functionality, and POS hardware for retail applications.

As a result, with the new solution, Regis is able to support its business requirements more efficiently by using a simplified network design that enhances its corporate and customer applications.

In recent news, Lubbock County Texas chose Spacenet’s high-performance satellite communications services and equipment to support critical communications across the state, and the Los Angeles Police Department selected Spacenet Emergency Communications Services and associated high-performance equipment to keep its officers connected.