Let’s pretend you’re launching a managed services business from scratch. You have no legacy infrastructure. You’re able to choose the PSA (professional services automation) and RMM (remote monitoring and management) tools that best fit your vision. Now, my question: Would those PSA and RMM tools live on premise (in your business) or would they be SaaS/hosted?
No doubt, on-premise software will be with us for decades to come. But I wonder if new businesses — those that have no IT investments to date — are more inclined to choose the SaaS/hosted model rather than an on-premise system.
Which path would you take and why? Take a few seconds and participate in our poll and/or post your comments below. I’ll share the final results on Friday, Aug. 28.
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Posted In: On Premise | PSA | RMM | Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service
Tags: Managed Services | managed services provider | MSP | Professional Services Automation | PSA | Remote monitoring and management | RMM | Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service
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Being the exact opposite of what we did (and do), I would absolutely go cloud-based. The capital costs involved with building out a reliable infrastructure and purchasing licenses for “what my business plan says I will need in one year” (forget reality for a moment because Kaseya is cheaper in bulk) and you can easily spend 50-60k – and that is a LOT of money for a startup to invest all at once, before they can ever bill a customer. From a cloud perspective, you can pay as you go and get started for less than $1000/month when all is said and done.
The great thing happening now, is that when you are ready to break out from the SaaS model and bring everything in house (it usually ends up being cheaper in the long run), then just about everyone has a migration path to help you move your data over intact. You can also make the move one step at a time. Get your PSA moved first, then your RMM (or vice-versa) allowing you to break-up that expense over time while maintaining the ability to provide services and bill clients.
Just my two cents,
Jason
Thanks for your two cents, Jason. I’ll be watching the poll over the next week to see how reader feedback trends.
A great question and one that should also be extended to existing service providers who are considering offering managed services to their clients.
I agree with Jason.
A start up (or existing service provider) who wishes to explore the managed services opportunity should start with a SaaS based “pay as you use” service that fully supports a migration to an onsite solution once (and IF!) critical mass is achieved.
It is (in my opinion) a bold move to sink a large amount of capital, that could be better redirected into marketing and sales activities, into a onsite MSP platform with a bulk license purchase.
Disclaimer – I am the CEO of Naverisk and this been architected to support this low risk approach to offering managed services.
Jon Kalaugher
CEO
http://www.Naverisk.com
I am part of a small “from scratch” company just getting off the ground. We have chosen to have our tools hosted by someone else. RMM, PSA, Hosted Exhange/Sharepoint, etc. We felt that we needed to be able to focus on selling a working product, and sometimed it is easier to have someone else make sure it is running correctly and efficiently.
We are using SaaS model for last few years & used services from various vendors. Eventually it becomes nightmare for us to handle multiple ISVs. So started looking for SaaS aggregator. From last few months we are with Jamcracker. Take a look at Saascatalog looks very impressive.
If we had it to do all over again, it would defiantly be SaaS/hosted for us. Not only do you gain the financial and workload benefits that come with the hosted model, but it also allows you to focus more time, energy and money on sales rather than your own infrastructure. As most startup MSP’s can attest to, anything that you can do to maximize your time doing sales is likely a good idea.
A couple of points in Jason’s first comment have really stirred my curiosity.
Jason said, “The great thing happening now, is that when you are ready to break out from the SaaS model and bring everything in house (it usually ends up being cheaper in the long run), then just about everyone has a migration path to help you move your data over intact.”
Point 1. Jason said, “break out from the SaaS model and bring everything in house”
When and or why would somebody want to break out from the SaaS model and bring everything in house?
Point 2. Jason said, “it usually ends up cheaper in the long run”
How does it (assuming ‘it’ is ‘in house’) end up cheaper in the long run?