AppId is over the quota
How can MSPs demand far more from their technology partners--including service desk and NOC (network operations center) providers? Here are five steps forward from Continuum Managed Services.
MSPs have spent the past decade outsourcing key pieces of their back office operations to technology partners. From service desks to NOC (network operations center) services, MSPs can pick and choose a range of third-party service options. But this is much more than an outsourcing conversation.
Somewhere along the way, MSPs forgot to ask five critically important questions – each of which can greatly impact your bottom line. If you're evaluating your current technology partners or researching the market for new partners, be sure to raise these five questions:
1. How Can You Make My Business More Profitable? Too often get bogged down in MSPs technical conversations with potential technology partners. Instead, shift the conversation to dollars and cents. Discuss financial models that drive profitable growth to your business – and determine exactly how the potential back-office partner can help to lift your gross margins above traditional MSP levels.
2. How Are You Innovating – Now and Long Term?Make sure you understand the technology partner's current capabilities and longer-term software, services and support roadmap. Ask about the past two years of promised innovations:
Were they delivered on time in an efficient, non-disruptive manner to MSPs?How did MSPs benefit?What's on the innovation road map now?What assurances are in place to make sure new innovations continue?
3. How Do You Blend MSP-centric Software, Service and Support into a Total Solution? Some MSPs chase software tools – lots of them. Then they jump to a separate services conversation. Next, they explore support options for their customers. Before you jump through three separate hoops take a step back and look at things holistically.
What you really need is an end-to-end partner that delivers ubiquitous, unified management.
Ubiquitous: Your partner back-office needs to give MSPs the ability to remotely monitor, manage, protect and back up any server, desktop or endpoint – using a web-based portal that's accessible from any smart computing devices.Unifiedback-office: Your partner can't have multiple tools for multiple platforms. Demand one platform that supports PCs, Macs, Windows, Linux and mobile devices. More than remotely monitoring and managing those systems, make sure the partner's solution can backup and restore those systems for complete business continuity.Management: Your back-office needs partners to push beyond traditional RMM software. Make sure it's integrated with world-class NOC (network operations center) and 24/7 Service Desk.
4. What's Your Vision for Marketing and Sales Support?
Let's assume the back-office partner can meet your MSP software, service and support needs. Don't stop there. Demand additional services – in areas such as marketing support, lead generation, sales engagement and new business development.
Also, make sure the partners can fulfill their promises marketing support.
Have they hired the right talent to assists MSPs with lead generation?What systems and processes they have in place for those efforts?Is there a long-term commitment to MSP marketing and sales support?
5. How Will We Avoid Complacency – Together?
If you've exhausted every service available from your technology partners, then perhaps the partners aren't innovating quickly enough. You need to fight market complacency--while getting more and demanding more from your technology partners. Leverage every last advantage the technology partner can give you. Ask at least once per quarter, how you can take the relationship to the next level.
If you don't get the answers you want –-and if you're not seeing the innovations you and your customers need-then perhaps it's time to shop around for a new technology partner.
Ask Me More
If you have additional questions about the five tips above, please don't hesitate to contact me. More than 3.300 MSPs leverage our innovations every day, and they're holding us accountable for continued innovations over the long haul.
Steve Ricketts is VP of marketing at Continuum. We provide a leading SaaS-based managed services platform that MSPs use to efficiently backup, monitor, troubleshoot, and maintain desktops, servers and other endpoints for SMB customers.
How can MSPs demand far more from their technology partners--including service desk and NOC (network operations center) providers? Here are five steps forward from Continuum Managed Services.
MSPs have spent the past decade outsourcing key pieces of their back office operations to technology partners. From service desks to NOC (network operations center) services, MSPs can pick and choose a range of third-party service options. But this is much more than an outsourcing conversation.
Somewhere along the way, MSPs forgot to ask five critically important questions – each of which can greatly impact your bottom line. If you're evaluating your current technology partners or researching the market for new partners, be sure to raise these five questions:
1. How Can You Make My Business More Profitable? Too often get bogged down in MSPs technical conversations with potential technology partners. Instead, shift the conversation to dollars and cents. Discuss financial models that drive profitable growth to your business – and determine exactly how the potential back-office partner can help to lift your gross margins above traditional MSP levels.
2. How Are You Innovating – Now and Long Term?Make sure you understand the technology partner's current capabilities and longer-term software, services and support roadmap. Ask about the past two years of promised innovations:
Were they delivered on time in an efficient, non-disruptive manner to MSPs?How did MSPs benefit?What's on the innovation road map now?What assurances are in place to make sure new innovations continue?
3. How Do You Blend MSP-centric Software, Service and Support into a Total Solution? Some MSPs chase software tools – lots of them. Then they jump to a separate services conversation. Next, they explore support options for their customers. Before you jump through three separate hoops take a step back and look at things holistically.
What you really need is an end-to-end partner that delivers ubiquitous, unified management.
Ubiquitous: Your partner back-office needs to give MSPs the ability to remotely monitor, manage, protect and back up any server, desktop or endpoint – using a web-based portal that's accessible from any smart computing devices.Unifiedback-office: Your partner can't have multiple tools for multiple platforms. Demand one platform that supports PCs, Macs, Windows, Linux and mobile devices. More than remotely monitoring and managing those systems, make sure the partner's solution can backup and restore those systems for complete business continuity.Management: Your back-office needs partners to push beyond traditional RMM software. Make sure it's integrated with world-class NOC (network operations center) and 24/7 Service Desk.
4. What's Your Vision for Marketing and Sales Support?
Let's assume the back-office partner can meet your MSP software, service and support needs. Don't stop there. Demand additional services – in areas such as marketing support, lead generation, sales engagement and new business development.
Also, make sure the partners can fulfill their promises marketing support.
Have they hired the right talent to assists MSPs with lead generation?What systems and processes they have in place for those efforts?Is there a long-term commitment to MSP marketing and sales support?
5. How Will We Avoid Complacency – Together?
If you've exhausted every service available from your technology partners, then perhaps the partners aren't innovating quickly enough. You need to fight market complacency--while getting more and demanding more from your technology partners. Leverage every last advantage the technology partner can give you. Ask at least once per quarter, how you can take the relationship to the next level.
If you don't get the answers you want –-and if you're not seeing the innovations you and your customers need-then perhaps it's time to shop around for a new technology partner.
Ask Me More
If you have additional questions about the five tips above, please don't hesitate to contact me. More than 3.300 MSPs leverage our innovations every day, and they're holding us accountable for continued innovations over the long haul.
Steve Ricketts is VP of marketing at Continuum. We provide a leading SaaS-based managed services platform that MSPs use to efficiently backup, monitor, troubleshoot, and maintain desktops, servers and other endpoints for SMB customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment