MSPmentor

It wasn’t long ago that adopting managed services was a considered to be a pretty scary proposition. You had to build a NOC (whatever a NOC is – but we will leave that to another discussion), spend $50,000 (U.S. dollars) or more on software, turn your business upside down (or go out of business in case you missed the point!), move from low-risk time and materials to high-risk fixed price billing, replace most of your sales team and technicians and of course obey the obligatory command to “fire your customers” that enjoyed the old way of doing business with you.

Fortunately the meaning of “managed services” has changed, and changed for the better. Here’s how.

Now conversations are about how remote monitoring and management can help deliver superior service to customers, provide the key information to sell more products and services at higher margins, radically improve operating efficiencies, establish much closer customer relationships and yes, migrate to some very nice high margin, value-based recurring “managed services” offerings.

Entry costs have plunged and solution providers can profitably outsource anything that is not a core competency from hosting to specialized support services. Now everyone can take advantage of the ability to provide most of their services remotely. Now they can decide exactly how they want to phase this must-have capability into their business in a way that makes sense to them and their customers.

Last week, we launched our 2008 sales year with a series of partner white papers and training guides based on the best practices of the most successful of our 2500 partners. This condensed wisdom sets out step by step how to make money with remote monitoring and management and provides the foundation for our training and coaching to help tailor these lessons to meet each solution providers’ unique objectives while reducing risk and achieving early and consistent profitability.

The wonderful thing about our language is that that the meaning of words ebbs and flows to reflect current practice. And successful business practice has given new meaning to the term “managed services.” The success of thousands of solution providers using remote monitoring and management software or “managed services software,” to make more money and better serve their customers has redefined the term to reflect current reality.

Note: Peter Sandiford is CEO of Level Platforms. Guest blog entries such as this one are contributed on a monthly basis as part of MSPmentor.net’s Platinum sponsorship.