3 Reasons Why MSPs Need To Offer Connectivity And Communications Solutions
By Lauren Shapiro, President, PlanetOne Communications
Information technology is innovating at a very rapid pace. In order to be successful, managed services providers (MSPs) and IT solutions providers must be ready and willing to quickly adapt their business models in response to customers’ consistent and changing demands.
Over the past five years, we’ve seen incredible growth in managed and cloud services. A number of MSPs, IT solution providers and agents are moving outside of their comfort zones to embrace new technologies, revenue streams and service models. In recent years, we’ve seen the convergence between IT and telecommunications (the LAN and the WAN) drive more and more MSPs, IT solutions providers, and agents to once again re-evaluate their business models, prompting many to make incremental, and in other cases, sweeping changes to their businesses. The overarching promise and underlining productivity gains around connectivity and communications solutions resonates with businesses of all sizes, making it a lucrative playing ground for all channel partners. If you’re not embracing these two lines of service, here are three reasons you should:
- Connectivity and collaboration solutions build stronger client relationships. IT organizations are looking to do more with less and embrace this new era of business anytime and anywhere. As a result, MSPs and IT solutions providers must be able to respond quickly to their needs. Many of the most popular cloud services today are unified communications, collaboration technologies and wireless communications. This is great news for channel partners that already hold the trust of their clients. Now the next step is to engage with or establish relations with the right vendors to integrate these solutions as part of your existing service contracts.
- Both technologies deliver greater agility. Today’s CIOs and IT leaders don’t always have the time to research the best way to solve their business challenges. As a trusted advisor, you are tasked with helping them to make the right decisions regarding which products and technologies will enable them to achieve their business goals. The business case for connectivity and communications is an easy one to make if your client or prospect is looking to enhance the customer experience and potentially expand its reach and revenues. These technologies are recognized for making it easier to engage with your team, your customers and your prospects.
- It’s more money and more value. It’s really not a matter of if, but when. Customers are going to buy connectivity and communications solutions from someone, and that someone should be you. These solutions offer a great way for you to add value and quickly expand your services portfolio, increase your recurring revenue streams and drive profitability.
As an MSP, IT solution provider or agent, the worst thing you can do when it comes to the convergence of IT and telecom is to stand still. Doing nothing is doing something, and that something is not good for your business. Be proactive and address the connectivity and communications needs of your clients before someone else does and you’re out.
Lauren Shapiro is president of PlanetOne Communications (www.planetone.net), an IT channel and telecom industry business partner for identifying and delivering connectivity solutions to small and midsize businesses and enterprises. Headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ., PlanetOne has developed successful alliances with more than 185 global services providers and has been celebrated by Inc. Magazine as one of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies, for four years running.