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We were meeting for breakfast, but Autotask CEO Bob Godgart wasn’t ready to pick up his fork. Instead, he opened his HP notebook and walked me through his vision for multi-partner customer engagements. Everyone from ConnectWise to OnForce (and soon, Partnerpedia) has communities to help VARs and managed service providers outsource work to one another. But I could tell Godgart has something different in mind. So we pushed aside breakfast, and dove into conversation.
You know about customer relationship management and project management. Now, asserts Godgart, the IT services market is ready for outsourcing management. Within the next month or so, Godgart says, Autotask Pro and Autotask Go will include a new outsourcing tool that will allow MSPs to coordinate projects with one another.
Now here’s the big twist: The tool can share tickets with third-party professional services automation (PSA) platforms, including ConnectWise. The system will also connect with OnForce members. What about VARs that don’t have MSP or PSA platforms? Those companies can use a forthcoming outsourcing portal to participate in partner engagements, Godgart says.
Bob Vogel, Autotask’s chief marketing officer, described the outsourcing management tool in a comment he recently posted on MSPmentor. During breakfast with me earlier today, Godgart pulled back the curtains a bit further, and showed me some screen shots to walk me through the system design and goals.
Some Initial Thoughts
I have to be careful with my comments here: I’m not an MSP, and I’m not running a PSA platform. Nor do I know if Autotask’s outsourcing management system will work as advertised.
However, I strongly advocate “open” approaches to software development, collaboration and networking. It sounds like Autotask is building for MSPs a partner engagement and revenue generation network that has windows and doorways to the outside world.
Yes, you still need Autotask’s Go or Pro platforms to coordinate these multi-partner engagements. But the ability to reach third-party PSA systems (i.e., ConnectWise), networks (OnForce) and even traditional VARs (via the outsourcing portal) sounds compelling, assuming the system works as advertised.
The Autotask system could also help MSPs to identify trustworthy partners that may ultimately become acquisition targets.
Rival Options
Of course, Autotask isn’t the only game in town for coordinating partner engagements.
OnForce has successfully expanded into Canada and is now moving into Europe. OnForce’s community members, in theory, will soon be able to coordinate customer engagements across the big pond.
Also of note: DirectPointe, the top-ranked MSP on our MSPmentor 100 list, has inked a partnership with OnForce that provides DirectForce with access to the OnForce community of technicians across the U.S. and Canada.
Plus, ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini spoke about his company’s partner community during the Kaseya User Conference. And Kaseya hinted that they were working on a similar partner-to-partner engagement system.
The developments don’t end there. I’m hearing rumblings about yet another partner network — known as Partnerpedia — set to launch this summer.
Now, the big question: Do partners actually want to outsource work to one another?
Posted In: Finance | Platforms | Sales | Service Level Agreements
Tags: Arnie Bellini | Autotask | Bob Godgart | Bob Vogel | ConnectWise | DirectPointe | Managed Service Provider | Managed Services | MSP | OnForce | outsourcing management | PartnerPedia
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Hi Joe - I just arrived back in NY and read your great article on Outsource Management.
I’m glad you shared the bigger “open architecture picture” as seamless interoperability between key vendors and partners is critical for the continued evolution of automation tools for MSPs. We have our webinar together on June 25 where we can dive into this live…
I wanted to add that our Outsource Management module will also be compatible with Ingram’s IMOnsite for the vendors participating within their network.
Have a safe trip to the west coast. - Bob
Bob: Great breakfast, great conversation … but great article? As long as readers consider MSPmentor fair, balanced, comprehensive and timely, I’ll be happy.
Interested to see how readers react to outsourcing revenue opportunities — regardless of which tools they choose. Even if the tools work as advertised, I think many IT service providers will hesitate to partner up with other MSPs.
That could be foolish, though. A recent report from Cisco revealed that 31 percent of Cisco partner revenue came from other partners.
Much like those Cisco partners, MSPs need to work with one another. The trick is avoiding the MSP pretenders, and finding real partners whom you can trust.
I say, “Yes they do!” Partners in our MSP Community here at MSPSN are doing it every day. They are using MSPSN to leverage our NOC & Help Desk and they are leveraging each other to deliver projects that they might ordinarily have to pass up if it is outside their core competencies. This allows them to compete fiercely in their marketplace. While others talk of the commoditization of Managed Services, our partners are working together to win more business and grow their companies.
We here at MSPSN are waiting with bated breath for Autotask to deliver their new partner collaboration features. We’ve built our Virtual Service Desk on top of the Autotask platform and their new features will push our Virtual Services delivery forward light-years. Our biggest frustration as we’ve built our Virtual Service Desk is that the different tool sets don’t necessarily work well together. We’ve been building our own integrations for some tools, but knowing what Autotask is preparing to deliver has allowed us focus on streamlining our service instead of focusing on software development and integration.
Autotask is doing a great thing for MSPs and for the Channel by building the platform that will allow us all to work together on a much larger scale than we can today. As our vendors and manufactures begin to understand that delivering the tools and platforms that allow the Channel to collaborate is not only good business for them, but good for the entire Channel Community we will see a whole new level of interaction and positive growth among Channel Partners.