Apps are an integral part of virtually every business’s daily operations. They optimize everything from tracking employee productivity to offering essential services to clients.
Whether you’re using simple apps like accounting software or apps that touch on every element of a business, like enterprise resource planning (ERP) apps, it’s essential to make sure that your apps are:
- The right choice for your business
- Constantly updated
- Properly configured
- Monitored for bugs and security breaches
- Upgraded when necessary
Doing all of the above can be out-of-scope for most business owners and their teams. That’s where application management services (AMS) come in.
Application management services are services offered by a third party to monitor, update, patch, fix, and upgrade your apps as necessary. Your AMS provider may help you choose apps, ensure there are no conflicts between your apps, configure your apps to work perfectly for your business, and more.
Benefits of AMS
Working with AMS providers can offer a wide variety of benefits to your business, including:
Access to expertise:
AMS providers offer specialized expertise in application management. They can help with bug fixing, reducing conflicts between apps, and providing ongoing support when crashes or other problems occur. They also help you choose the right apps for your business, enhance applications to work properly for your business through proper configuration, and more.
Cost-effective services:
Application management falls outside of the core business competencies of most businesses. Hiring someone to manage apps can be incredibly costly; moreover, it can be almost impossible to ensure the continued functionality and efficiency of your apps should that person leave your organization. Hiring a third-party AMS provider can reduce your human resources costs, all while providing reliable, ongoing support.
Timely support:
When apps crash or stop working properly, your business can grind to a halt. Your AMS provider can prevent most app crashes before they occur and fix any problems that arise.
How AMS Works
AMS works by outsourcing app management to a third party instead of having to dedicate internal resources to application support. Depending on the application management service you choose, your AMS provider may:
- Help you select new apps for your business
- Install and test new apps
- Update software licences
- Perform optimization tasks like configuring apps on your behalf
- Send alerts about critical issues
- Provide bug fixes
- Fix crashes
- And more
The process generally starts with an in-depth analysis of all the apps you’re currently using. From there, your AMS provider may propose a number of different upgrades, changes, or other solutions to improve efficiency and decrease the risk of bugs and crashes. The goal is to lower your operating costs, all while providing app support that fits your unique business needs.
Types of AMS
Broadly speaking, there are four different ways that an AMS provider can help you with app management. They are:
Service requests:
Your AMS provider will respond to direct requests for service, whether it be to help install new applications or update, reconfigure, or otherwise modify existing apps.
Incidents:
Your AMS provider will handle crashes, conflicts, and other incidents that prevent you from using your apps.
Routine tasks:
Your AMS provider will routinely update your apps, check reports from apps, and perform other routine tasks.
Enhancement hours:
Your AMS provider will enhance your apps by changing, upgrading, and reconfiguring them to work better within your business’s overall app infrastructure.
Choosing an AMS Provider
To choose the right application management services provider for your business, you should keep a number of different factors in mind, including:
- Experience: Not all AMS providers are built equally. When trusting third-party organizations with your data, choosing a company with a proven track record of success is always important. Businesses that fail in IT tend to fail quickly, as large-scale failures can lead to data breaches, loss of business, and more. Choose a provider who has years of experience providing AMS to businesses.
- Services offered: The services you’ll need will depend, in large part, on the size of your business. Large businesses may need more than one account manager and a full team to help manage hundreds of different apps. They may also require 24/7 service. Small and medium-sized businesses can probably do with a single account manager and a smaller team; 24/7 service may not be necessary.
- Cost: The goal of hiring a third party to manage applications is for cost savings; find an organization that can provide you with all the monitoring and resources you need while charging less than hiring your own AMS team would cost.
The Role of AMS in Business Success
The goal of AMS is to allow you to focus on your business's core competencies by outsourcing the installation, monitoring, and upgrading of apps to a third party. By doing so, you can prevent backlogs and downtime caused by app crashes or malfunctions and avoid user dissatisfaction, interruptions in service, and other inefficiencies.
Best of all, AMS can make your existing apps work better; you may even be able to reduce overhead costs by eliminating redundant apps. Workflows can be improved, load times reduced, and costs cut—all through AMS.
Interested in application management services? Get in touch with Constant C
Frequently Asked Questions
What does application management do?
Application management services (AMS) manage business applications on your behalf. This may include:
- Installing apps
- Upgrading apps
- Reconfiguring apps
- Handling crashes
- Handling bug fixes
- Advice on which apps you should install
- And more
What are AMS advisory services?
AMS advisory services are AMS in an advisory capacity; rather than doing hands-on bug fixes and upgrades, they may advise you on what apps to choose, how to configure them, and more.
