By Kathleen Walsh, Vice President, Global Customer Service.
28th October 2013
While “Managed Services” has come to take on many meanings, at its most basic level, it is the practice of outsourcing day-to-day management responsibilities – but it should also be contemplated as a strategic method for improving operations.
Mixology is, at its most basic, viewed as another term for mixing drinks or bartending, yet it is commonly accepted as a more refined, higher study of mixing cocktails.
Both Managed Services and Mixology are equal parts art and science. Not unlike managing today’s global trading environment.
In order to keep the trading floor operating flawlessly, Operational Leadership teams are like great bartenders. They require depth of knowledge in a variety of topics, must think quickly and be service-oriented, demonstrate skill in evolving core competencies, and serve many people at the same time in a repeatable and consistent manner. The Strategic Leadership resembles a mixologist who focuses on the construct, studies market trends, borrows from the classics to concoct new and exciting concepts, experiments with lesser known and emerging global ingredients, and ultimately introduces new products and services to protect and expand the business. These teams should work together for a successful cycle of creation – refinement – serving – repetition. A Managed Services partner can assist by collaborating with customers throughout this cycle by both lending insight and support, while providing operational and cost efficiencies.
As integration across infrastructure, applications and operations will ensure efficiency, accountability and alignment between business strategies and enabling services-more vertical expertise is required from suppliers. In this new reality, it’s imperative to have a team of technical & business consultants who understand the complete trading environment and who can also execute.
A proactive Managed Services team which works inside your organization to identify and solve problems quickly and provide expert support on the trading floor to keep the business moving. A single team comprising the perfect blend of resources to:
- Focus on analyzing requirements to maximize your assets and reduce costs
- Identify and respond to events 24/7
- Navigate multi-vendor relationships and processes
- Evaluate new technologies to drive efficiencies while managing costs
- Ensure performance and continuous improvement
- the base spirit, which gives the cocktail its main flavor (Customer);
- the modifier/mixer, which melds exceptionally well with the base spirit but doesn’t overpower (Managed Services Partner);
- the flavoring, which brings it all together (Collaboration).
Source: IPC Systems, Inc