MSPmentor’s 2012 Platinum Sponsors contribute timely insights through our guest blogging system. Our guest bloggers avoid the temptation to give you sales pitches, and instead share key observations to help you evolve, build and grow your managed services practices.
At the MSPWorld trade show at Miami last week, attendees asked how to hold their cloud provider responsible for slow application performance. Also, attendees wanted to know how to avoid the next catastrophic outage and ensure the SLAs penalized the cloud provider for missing promised targets.
I’ll be the first to point out that there are numerous backup/disaster recovery/business continuity vendors in the channel right now, and choosing a solution that can satisfy all of your customers’ needs is a difficult task. When the abundance of choice is coupled with dissatisfaction from previous vendors, this can lead many MSPs into thinking it will be easier and more cost effective to build their own backup solution.
Anyone going to be buying Facebook shares? I think I might – if only because it will be THE cool icebreaker for the next few months. What’s not to like. But a $100 billion valuation? That’s a big number – even in America where a billion is not quite what it is here in Europe. Where does that value come from and how do we trust that it’s for real?
Data is the lifeblood of any organization, and its loss can be a serious blow to the business. If your systems and data are not adequately protected and supported by a well-tested disaster recovery plan, chances are that you are placing your organization at risk.
For those of us that don’t think the world will end in December 2012, this month will bring about a time for Managed Service Providers to do some strategic planning, identifying business goals and outlining ways to accomplish company-wide initiatives. Technology seems to be evolving at an accelerated pace, bringing about both challenges and opportunities for MSPs. Since increasing revenue is likely a business goal for most companies, it’s important to think about ways to leverage IT environment changes in order to offer new services. To do so, let’s first evaluate two trends likely to impact every managed service provider.
If a customer doesn’t see the business value in what you do, your services are expendable. It’s a harsh reality, but one that we all face. As an MSP, the challenge lies in communicating your customer value day-in and day-out. For most, promoting value at the front end of the sale to earn the customer’s business comes easy. But once the ink dries, many MSPs turn the focus to meeting the SLA (service level agreement) and recognizing the recurring revenue. The selling stops. The relationship is managed, but is the business still being earned and relationship nurtured?
It will come as no surprise that we anticipate continuing — and explosive — cloud computing growth this year. What does surprise me is the number of resellers who remain unprepared to take advantage of this trend. As you hone your cloud strategy for 2012, keep in mind these four elements of a successful cloud plan.
Agility, ability and velocity became the new success necessities of organizations in past few years, especially in just gone by 2011 driven largely by recession realities and unpredictable business environment. Recession, viewed positively (do we have a choice?), boosted innovation and increased the pace of new process development and its adoption forever. Both businesses and individuals are increasingly dependent on IT and the services provided by IT. The IT customer is increasingly global, the realm of the IT services grows larger every day and their dependency on sprawling, distributed components demands intelligent ways to manage and monitor this infrastructure.
As a sales VP, it’s part of my job to look ahead and make predictions for the year. Based on my experience providing technology solutions to MSPs in the small and midsized businesses (SMB) space, I expect to see the following cloud-related storage trends accelerate in 2012.
As an MSP, your time is valuable; it’s a precious commodity. As a vendor and channel partner, we are intensely aware of that. We know the less time you spend managing backups, the more time that you’ll have to focus on other aspects of your business.
Here’s a take on business building that I thought would be worth sharing. As this is our first guest blog on MSPMentor I figured it may be of use in your own efforts and also serves to provide you with an insight into ours. Lean startup methodologies have been around for a few years now and as more supporting evidence is fed back many mature businesses have adopted the approach for new projects.
Growing up, my mother always told me “not to judge a book by its cover.” As a society, we are constantly told not to jump to conclusions or judge others based on appearances, when in reality, we simply can’t help it most of the time. It’s not easy to disregard appearance and base decisions solely on content. We are constantly surrounded by thousands of choices for practically everything and sometimes it’s overwhelming to sort through the clutter. The fact of the matter is that everyone gravitates towards other people, products and places based on appearance.
Looking back, 2011 was rocked by scandals, deaths, incredible new products, underwhelming new products, and more. The year had a lot to say to businesses, if we were listening, especially about data protection, backup and disaster recovery, and more. Here then are three ways 2011 reminded us of the importance of business continuity.
Look, I know you’re all IT people. You like bits and bytes, speeds and feeds. But if English majors have to learn enough math to balance their checkbooks, IT folks should learn enough grammar to be able to answer the following question: What’s the antonym to downtime? I’ll give you a clue – it’s something every person who uses technology hopes for.
I know what you’re thinking: Consumerism? Have you lost your mind? No, but I do want you to consider the positive impact consumerism can have on your business when it comes to cloud adoption.
In today’s changing IT landscape, the need for service providers to differentiate offerings from their peers is now more important and competitive than ever. Further, the average SMB’s network is becoming more and more sophisticated due in large part to the rapid adoption rates of migrating to cloud and virtual environments. We have noticed that one of the current significant trends in networking right now appears to be infrastructure virtualization and its impact on networking. Here’s why.
It is absolutely amazing how fast a year can fly by, and for many, my guess is this year has gone by much faster than some. As someone who attends quite a few trade events on an annual basis, I have the opportunity to sit down face to face with a host of MSPs and resellers who are moving towards the MSP model, and the dichotomy of success is amazing to me. Now, let’s look back… and ahead.
The quest to improve the productivity and efficiency of IT organizations is an ongoing one. With the arrival and rapid adoption of virtualization and cloud infrastructure in the recent years, IT organizations worldwide are starting to realize significant economy-of-scale benefits. Reduction in costs for ‘incremental units’ of computing power, the ability to more easily flex up and down as needed, and the lack of restrictions imposed by the traditional models, will all drive a dramatic increase in the consumption of computing and application resources as organizations are freed up to do more. However, with this benefit comes the added burden of high administration overhead from managing a virally sprawling & dynamic IT environment.
IT service providers that have been selling cloud-based business continuity solutions surely have noticed data backup and recovery is one of the most popular cloud-based offerings with end users. In fact, according to a recent study by CompTIA, storage and backup solutions are the most popular cloud applications, with 71 percent of small and midsize businesses (SMB) currently using the technology. The data points don’t end there.
What’s worse: A hurricane or a hard drive soaking in coffee? An early season blizzard that knocks out power lines or the dreaded blue screen of death? I suppose it depends on your perspective. But if you’re like most MSPs with whom I meet, a hard drive steeped in coffee or the blue screen of death seem worse than a “little weather.”
We’ve all seen the ads. Match.com can be a great place to meet that special someone – maybe even your spouse or partner. But what the ads don’t disclose is all the time, effort and misses that led up to that “perfect match.” On the personal level, it’s all worth it, but in the business world, who has the time, energy or money to throw at relationships that just aren’t going to pan out?! My point is this – when it comes to selecting a business partner, especially for high-profile, game-changing technologies like cloud, a few clicks of the mouse aren’t going to cut it.
Maybe you thought the Red Sox and the Braves were going to hit it out of the park last month. But, as I write this, the wild card-winning Cardinals are battling the Rangers in the World Series. Baseball’s unpredictable like that, you never know who is going to step up and drive in the game-winning run.
There are MSPs out there who continue to grow their businesses and they all seem to share two characteristics: a relentless focus on providing stellar customer service while also maintaining an eye on their bottom line. It’s a tough balancing act, and getting tougher as the companies MSPs serve (and MSPs themselves) scrutinize every penny of spending and find ways to optimize and increase cost efficiencies. Only MSPs who are delivering more value than the other guy – and can also do more with less – are going to thrive long-term.
