Hurricane Sandy. Lightning storms. Flooding. These are the punches that Mother Nature has dealt restaurant managers at the Jersey shore in recent years. Also a challenge for these managers is running a business during the busy summer months. Everything, especially the point of sale system, has to be up and running at top performance during these peak times.
As a second-generation POS dealer, Delaware Valley Registers, Inc. (DVR) has had to make many adjustments to its business over the years to remain relevant. With the rapid pace of technological change in the retail and restaurant markets, resellers need a strategy to stay ahead of trends and provide their customers with the most powerful, secure, and cutting-edge solutions. For solutions providers who don’t, the result is typically them going out of business.
Today, selling merchant services without any sort of value-add is a recipe for disaster. Those in this business suffer from shrinking margins and high attrition rates when competing on price alone. Some ISOs and agents, however, have adjusted their business model to address these trends.
Founded in 1997 by Erik Nachbahr in his Baltimore basement, Helion Automotive Technologies has quickly grown to be America’s largest outsourced technology provider for auto dealerships. Helion brings considerable brainpower and experience to bear on all things relating to automotive technology. With over 650 dealerships and body shops under management, Helion’s staff is keenly in tune with the unique challenges faced by auto dealers, both technical and operational.
Two years ago, SWAT Systems had had enough of its antivirus software. At the time, the Seattle-based MSP had tried a succession of antivirus products, and not one of them had worked as well as they needed. “The products were not a good fit for us,” recalls David Blake, Chief Technology Officer at SWAT. “Clients’ machines were still getting infected and the products were too resource intensive.”
Casey Lozano spent years honing his POS expertise as a senior installer of Micros systems in Arizona working for a regional dealer. In 2014, Lozano embarked on his own, and was intent on starting a business focused on what he had been doing — installing POS systems. It was during a conversation with a Harbortouch representative that Lozano was presented with a more attractive, life-changing offer.
Recently, the Lloyd Group was looking to move its services to the cloud. The MSP was evaluating various cloud-based tools and learned about cybersecurity provider Webroot, recalls Bill Goldin, director of technology at the New York metropolitan-area company. What initially attracted Lloyd to Webroot was the lightweight nature of the vendor’s antimalware solution.
For Stuart Ebner, partner at Proactive Technology Group, the managed services model is all about simple economics and some basic truths. If you can retain a client longer, you’re better off. If you can stop a client from having a major IT issue, you’re building a stronger relationship. And, while you can look like a hero removing malware and saving important data from infected customer computers, it’s better for an infection to never happen. On all of these points, Ebner says, being a Webroot partner allows the MSP to succeed.
One characteristic of a successful MSP is the ability to be efficient in all operational aspects. There are many components to this, but one of the most critical is leveraging technology that can save you time. Antivirus and endpoint security solutions are important technologies to have as part of your solution set, and can contribute to your overall profitability as long as they perform well.
IT security has become a high-stakes game that stretches the resources and skills of many organizations. Firms struggle to keep up with an ever-changing threat landscape as the pool of available security professionals continues to shrink. The SMB customer is particularly vulnerable, competing for talent against larger firms with greater resources and a broader ability to recruit and retain the best people.
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