How are you going to manage your finances as you transition from break-fix and solutions selling to managed services? How will the transition impact your cash flow? Get Started: Register to enter our Resource Center, where you’ll be able to download numerous guides to building and running your managed services business. And check back often. We post new guides in the MSPmentor Resource Center every week.
Why isn’t every VAR a successful managed service provider (MSP)? There are many paths to success, but aspiring MSPs also make many common mistakes that hinder their ability to become profitable. In part 1 and part 2 in our series, we covered eight common errors that MSPs make. Interested in becoming a successful provider of managed services? In this last part in the series, here are five more common blunders you need to avoid.
Time for me to eat a little more crow and also follow-up on an old story. Back in November 2008 I praised MaxSP for having a clear mission statement and a clear channel model for partners that wanted to profit from business continuity. Perhaps that praise was too strong. Fast forward to the present, and MaxSP allegedly has gone out of business.
While some pundits see slowing growth in the managed services market, Level Platforms CEO Peter Sandiford (photo, right) is not one of them. In an email to MSPmentor, Sandiford on April 6 said his company is “seeing continued growth in all markets and no delay in purchasing decisions.” Here’s what else Sandiford had to say.
Nimsoft CEO Gary Read (photo, right) sounds like a lot of the executives I’ve interviewed lately. Although Nimsoft is growing and remains cash flow positive, customers and managed service providers are delaying purchasing decisions amid the recession, Read told me today. Read’s statements coupled with anecdotes from across the MSP industry provide an important reality check.
Monday at Autotask Community Live is now history. Here are eight quick highlights — so far — from the managed services conference held in Nashville, Tenn.:
Amy Katz and I land in Nashville, Tenn., this Sunday (March 29) for the Autotask Community Live conference. The grapevine tells me roughly 300 IT service providers and managed service providers will converge on Nashville for the conference, plus many of the remote monitoring tool providers will be on hand. Here are five discussion points we’ll be tracking at the event.
I have a theory about startups (companies forming during this recession) that hasn’t been tested yet, so I’ve been reaching out to my network for input — on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, lots of emails, a few chats over coffee, and now here.
The franchise model continues to show momentum in certain sectors of the managed services market. TeamLogic IT, which blends managed services with a nationwide network of IT franchises, has landed on Franchise Times’ list of Fast 55 companies. TeamLogic IT isn’t alone in the MSP franchise market.
Managed services as an IT service delivery model is here to stay. Now for the risk: As with any other relatively new market, the SMB managed service space is highly fragmented. There are hundreds of existing application and service vendors and just as many new entrants to the industry competing for solution providers’ mind share and market share. So how do you tell the good partners from the bad ones?
I’ve been reading a range of coverage related to President Obama’s credit plan for small businesses, announced March 16. The Associated Press offered the following bullet points summarizing the plan — but I wonder: Will managed service providers (MSPs) benefit from the strategy?
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