How Automated Cloud Assessments Enable MSPs To Optimize Microsoft 365 Environments
By Willie Cash, Americas General Manager, Voleer at BitTitan
MSPs and IT professionals can amplify their value by leveraging assessments to achieve greater ROI from Microsoft 365
The Microsoft Office 365 market is expanding. Based on the company’s recent stock performance, analysts anticipate that Office 365 could potentially "double its installed base" to 500 million users. It’s worth noting that the value of Microsoft 365’s cloud capabilities has only heightened during the pandemic. As a significant portion of employees continue to work remotely, more companies than ever are using the cloud productivity suite. With that expansion comes the inherent need for security, governance, and visibility into Microsoft 365 environments.
As the use of Microsoft 365 continues to grow, it presents a significant market opportunity for MSPs and IT service providers (ITSPs). With the surging adoption of the cloud productivity suite, ITSPs can add value and step in as trusted advisors to provide guidance and recommendations on a client’s Microsoft 365 environment backed by data and reporting.
However, when it comes to cloud services like Microsoft 365, service providers can struggle to differentiate themselves from competitors. Often, service providers take a more reactive approach to customer relations on a commoditized service, waiting for clients to call them with an issue when a proactive approach is warranted. When an ITSP actively demonstrates its worth and the expertise it can bring to the table, this can help strengthen relationships with existing customers, and open doors to new clients.
An area where MSPs and ITSPs can proactively add value is through analyzing and validating when a software service is functioning properly, and capabilities are optimized. Assessments provide a noninvasive way for ITSPs to evaluate a potential customer’s Microsoft 365 environment with minimal effort. With a quick analysis of an environment, service providers can give recommendations and guidance that help their customers achieve higher ROI from their Microsoft 365 technologies. These recommendations not only help elevate the provider’s status as a trusted advisor but also help amplify the provider’s market longevity. When continually receiving reliable advice and guidance, customers are less likely to switch providers.
Outlined below are three ways MSPs and ITSPs can leverage assessments to promote their expertise and help broaden and diversify their offerings:
Benefit 1: Help Secure New Business.
Providing recommendations to potential customers backed by data and reporting enables IT service providers to uncover new revenue opportunities and diversify their business development strategy. Having a noninvasive and simplified way to execute automated assessments is critical, which is offered by solutions like BitTitan’s Voleer. IT service providers can easily offer these assessments as a service during a sales pitch to a new business opportunity. The assessments offering also can help service providers initiate conversations with potential new leads, showing how they can easily add value to cloud technologies that the customer is already using. By providing detailed and insightful information that helps enhance solutions that a customer already has in place, ITSPs create a successful formula to easily win over new clients and create recurring value.
Benefit 2: Uncover New Upsell Opportunities With Customers.
Cloud assessments can unlock new potential offerings to customers that complement their current Microsoft 365 suite. By providing such evaluations, ITSPs can help their end users get the most out of their Microsoft 365 technologies. Through these assessments, an IT service provider can show their clients added value in eliminating unnecessary costs on unused licenses and subscriptions. Assessments also can streamline a company's inventory by analyzing various services and assets utilized and provisioned in Microsoft 365 to sharpen plans around provisioning and maximizing employee productivity.
Benefit 3: Strengthen Customer Retention By Continually Adding Value.
Automated assessments enable ITSPs to be proactive and initiate conversations with customers on how to continually protect and best utilize their current Microsoft 365 products. For example, assessments can help enhance the security of Microsoft 365 environments by helping to assess current tenants for possible security risks and breaches. An IT service provider also can improve security by monitoring individual user actions like log-in attempts. Does every employee know when there is an attempt to log in to their account? Do they have a way to easily view a critical activity like successful and failed logins by IP address and by country? Additionally, they can generate security reports that outline how to strengthen security posture by adding new features to the Microsoft 365 stack.
As demand for Microsoft 365 continues to rise, service providers must actively demonstrate their expertise in optimizing these cloud technologies. This is not a time to remain reactive and wait for customers to seek ITSPs when a problem occurs. To gain a competitive edge and strengthen their customer-relations strategy, service providers should look to leverage automated assessments as a way to illustrate the value they bring to the table. It’s a win-win for all parties involved.
About The Author
Willie Cash is the General Manager of Voleer Americas at BitTitan. He works with SMB and enterprise partner companies to identify and implement effective ways to drive solutions, grow revenue, and increase profits in their day-to-day businesses by leveraging technologies like Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, and more. Learn more about Voleer here.