4 Ways Elite MSPs Master Today's Cloud And Mobility Waves
By Mike Cullen, Senior VP of Worldwide Sales and Business Strategy, SolarWinds N-able
There’s a lot of noise being made about cloud computing and mobile devices and how they’ll put the squeeze on traditional managed services provider (MSP) revenues and profits. But take a closer look and you’ll discover progressive MSPs are thriving, not drowning, amidst the market changes. The obvious question: “How are they doing it?”
Here are four tips from the MSP elite community that will help you capitalize on the move to cloud and explosive demand for mobile:
- Cover The Bases
There’s no question that low Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) partner margins, combined with cloud providers selling direct to end customers, have changed the dynamics of the managed services market. But there’s no reason to panic. The opportunity for MSPs is to extend monitoring services across on-premises, hybrid, and public cloud. By providing customers with a holistic, comprehensive view of these environments, you can help them bridge the gap between what was once the singular focus of their IT infrastructure — their server and hardware investments — and where their allegiance is shifting today, which is the increasing array of new cloud services that must be activated, monitored and managed.
As small to midsize businesses (SMB) straddle on-premise and cloud environments, operating in the hybrid world in between, it’s important for MSPs to align their services accordingly. Don’t forget that those hardware investments still hold value to your clients. Make sure you continue to address them while moving forward into the cloud. In fact, all price quotes should list traditional IT purchases as well as cloud alternatives, reflecting the mash-up of cloud services and hardware that makes up your client environments today.
- Make The Adjustment For IT Anywhere
Blend cloud computing with mobile computing and the result is IT anywhere — the ability for employees, contractors and partners to conduct business and fetch data from any Internet-enabled location. To address this challenge, N-able has extended its remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform to allow MSPs to manage mobile email, Wi-Fi connections, virtual private networks, user provisioning and more. Before allowing users to connect a device to a corporate network containing corporate data, MSPs can ensure that the proper IT policies are in place, helping their clients to balance mobility, productivity and security.
- Focus On The End User Experience
As cloud computing continues to gain ground over the traditional server market, the lesson for MSPs is to adapt from a business based on server management, to one that is focused on delivering an exceptional user experience. If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve already seen your highest-margin engagements shift from product sales to recurring revenue through managed IT and even managed print, backup, security and more. Now that the shift to hybrid cloud services has arrived, it’s incumbent upon MSPs to understand how to build profitable services in this area.
That’s why many N-able MSPs are leveraging our business tools, such as our MSP Playbook, to gain the blueprint for success they need.
4. Remember Your Value And Differentiate Your Expertise
Born-in-the-cloud IT consultants are a new breed of service provider that is just taking shape in the market. These providers help customers price, find, select and activate a range of cloud services. Competing with them — when they have no legacy costs — is a growing threat for traditional MSPs. Their prices might sound appealing to your clients, but can they cover all the bases? What these firms lack is the expertise to blend cloud services with traditional on-premises services. Successful MSPs recognize that’s where they can outperform born-in-the-cloud competitors and take the time to remind their clients of that important truth.
The IT ecosystem has become more complex, but the business case for managed IT services is much simpler to articulate with the use of the right tools, technology, and talent. To move forward and keep profit margins high, traditional service providers must learn to automate everything, using proven RMM and professional service automation tools, and be prepared to manage and support everything connected to the network including commodity SaaS services such as Google Apps and Office 365. In addition, focus heavily on Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), building public, private or hybrid cloud services on third-party IaaS infrastructure. Above all, remain your customers’ trusted advisor at all times. This is a relationship business, and your clients want to work with people they know, like and trust to get IT done right.
Mike Cullen brings over 20 years of corporate sales experience to N-able by SolarWinds, and has assembled an equally experienced sales force. Prior to joining N-able, he was vice president of sales (Ottawa Branch) and interim president of the Québec region for IKON Office Solutions. He grew the Ottawa business to $24 million in just five years, resulting in the Ottawa office's recognition as the branch office of the year in 2000. Cullen joined IKON in 1995 as a result of an acquisition of Fulline Office Products, an office equipment company he co-founded in 1988. Previously in his career, he held progressively senior sales management positions with Canon and Pitney Bowes.