How retailers can use network management services to simplify network management and become proactive vs. reactive?
Does your team struggle to maintain multiple tools in order to manage and support your network? If so, you are not alone, and it’s no wonder. After all, there are network management services and network management tools for monitoring switches and routers, another tool for managing degradation of network connectivity, laptop and desktop connectivity, point of sale systems, and more. Really, anything with an IP address needs a network management tool, which is a struggle for most retailers. Furthermore, as a retailer’s footprint grows, so does the technology required to manage the business.
The Challenges with In-house Network Monitoring and Management
- In-house support that includes all the expertise and tools required to monitor and manage complex networks is expensive and requires a retailer to provide an additional layer of management.
- Outsourced Tier 1 help desks tend to follow a script, and in most cases, cannot solve an issue remotely. These issues are routed right back to an internal resolver group within the retailer’s organization.
How can a retailer escape this reactive network management nightmare and become proactive?
Retailers can escape the headaches and challenges associated with managing networks in-house with management tools. The right managed network services will allow retailers to consolidate all your monitoring into a single pane of glass. Retailers that utilize solutions like DecisionPoint’s OnPoint Vision, a complete monitoring and management portal, have found that they can access real-time data and monitor their fleet of mobile devices, network, network connections, switches, servers, POS systems, and all IP addressable devices through one simple to use interface.
How does one manage and troubleshoot across a national footprint consisting of multiple technologies, operating systems, hardware components, and severity levels?
Without a network management services platform designed to aggregate technology monitoring and management solutions, your in-house team will have a tough time troubleshooting across software, devices, networks, and geographies. Trying to figure out the source of a problem can become an exercise in finger-pointing.
- Do you have a managed network services tool that looks holistically at your network and components?
- Do you have a managed network services tool that increases the reliability of your infrastructure?
Selecting a network management service provider that offers complete visibility from end-to-end is the key to simplifying the nightmare of troubleshooting a complex issue across multiple technologies. The ability to view real-time network availability, utilization, and capacity of your servers and manage the cloud instance running your POS are all mission-critical capabilities for reducing downtime and decreasing your support cost. The right managed network services provider that will help you achieve this is critical.
Proactive Network Management to Avoid Impacting Revenue
Gaining complete visibility into your network and devices is the optimal solution for any IT organization. Your in-house support is reactive to issues faster than ever before, but how do you turn that into proactive management? How does an in-house IT department take the large amounts of data now available and boil it down into a digestible format to make impactful business decisions? A complete aggregation of your network and device management tools may not be enough. You need more experienced support.
- Technology can create exponential growth for experienced support needs within an IT department, but are you prepared to develop, manage, and fund a 24/7 Network Operations Center (NOC)
DecisionPoint’s network operations center is the solution to your proactive network management needs. Our experienced 24/7/365 support team utilizes decades of experience proactively monitoring networks and devices to address problems before you’ve arrived to work for the day. As a managed network services provider, our team will resolve common issues quickly, provide notifications of an issue before it creates device downtime, and seek to resolve problems before they impact POS systems and your business’s profitability.
Retailers need all the uptime they can get. Sourcing a NOC that is tied into the proactive management of your entire technology footprint in-store (mobile and IP based) is critical to servicing customers when and where they are ready to buy. Utilizing OnPoint Vision and our NOC is your ticket to first-class proactive support to eliminate the nightmare of increasing technology and support needs.
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