By its very nature, managed services is proactive,
giving you greater control of your cash flow
and more time to focus on building your business.
MANAGED SERVICES OFFERS SMB
channel partners an important opportunity to adopt a new and more profitable business model—one in which
our role shifts from that of technicians
to consultants and business partners.
But is it a model that your company can adopt? As
an industry professional who
specializes in helping fellow
channel partners offer managed services, I believe the answer is an emphatic “yes.”
THE TRADITIONAL MODEL
The traditional business model
for channel partners has several
limitations. When we work as
reactive service providers, for
instance, we generally wait for
the phone to ring, and then
rush to put out a client’s fire.
We get paid after the fact,
often with some haggling over
the price. And because our
earnings are unpredictable, it
is difficult to know when to add
new employees or capabilities.
By contrast, the managed
services model is proactive. We
act as consultants who advise
our clients on the appropriate
hardware, software, and services to meet their business requirements. We work to ensure that clients enjoy uninterrupted service, and only rush to their sites in the rare
event of an outage, thereby reducing our operating and
travel costs. We bill up front for our monthly retainer,
which makes revenues highly dependable and predictable. And we can focus more time on marketing,
sales, and business development activities that lead to
future growth.
What’s more, because most managed services can be
delivered to multiple clients concurrently, we gain the
freedom to take on more and bigger clients, and with
fewer employees.
Clients benefit from the managed services model as
well. They enjoy the advantages of a proactive mainte-
nance schedule that places all downtime risks at the
door of the service provider, for example. In addition,
they receive 24/7 monitoring of all critical devices and
services such as servers, switches, routers, firewalls,
VPN connections, line-of-business applications, and
email services. They get the benefits of an “all-you-can-
eat” help desk. And under some
agreements, they get compre-
hensive management of all third-
party infrastructure vendors,
such as those who provide tele-
phone, T1, network copier, and
business application services.
Above all, clients get expert,
proactive, objective advice on
their overall requirements and
capabilities from a trusted ad-
viser who has their best interests
in mind. All at a predictable, flat
fee that allows for easy annual
budgeting.
Before you enter the managed
services arena, you’ll need to
make some decisions based on
three key tasks.
, identify your core
deliverables, such as applications
development, help desk services,
vendor management, monitoring, or project work.
Vice President,
Chief Information Officer,
Intelligent Enterprise Inc./
MSP University
A NEW MODEL
The best news is that it has
never been easier to adopt the
managed services model.
In the past, channel partners
looking to become managed
services providers had to make
significant investments in hard-
ware, software, training, and
personnel. But with the advent
of third-party vendors who deliver help desk and man-
agement/monitoring services, even the smallest sole
proprietorships and partnerships can scale up their busi-
nesses without scaling up their internal capabilities.
The “break-fix” business model worked relatively
well when it was virtually the only model available. But
the enormous strides in remote management and out-sourcing services are rapidly moving that model toward
obsolescence.
That’s a very positive development for those of us
who are SMB channel partners. I have seen the managed services model work for firms of all sizes. And I
believe it represents the future of our industry.
, divide your existing client base into three categories: “A” clients are those with
whom you have the strongest relationships, and who will quickly
understand and adopt the managed services approach. “B”
clients are those who may require a bit more persuasion, but
will generally make the switch as
well. “C” clients are those who
will require too much energy to
make their continued business
worthwhile.
While it may be difficult to give
up the revenue they provide, you
will ultimately be better off gradually saying goodbye to the “C”
clients as you cultivate new
clients in the more desirable
categories.
, establish a pricing
model. A common approach is
to establish a price per device—
whether a PC, server, or telecommunications device. Our firm
prefers “consultative” pricing,
however, which is based on the
value we offer—and the cost
savings and productivity the
client will gain. In our training
materials for channel partners,
we offer a detailed examination
of the advantages and disadvantages of various pricing models.
These materials are available
at and
.
