Service level agreements (SLAs): Many MSPs offer them. But do you really have to? And if so, how can you design SLAs that give your customers peace of mind without putting undue stress on your own business. 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.
During a tight economy, it’s sometimes difficult for you to turn down a questionable business engagement — even if you know the customer is going to be a nightmare, and the margins aren’t going to be so great.
But MSP University CIO Erick Simpson offers some solid advice on how to transform your business, so that you can focus on fewer, higher-paying customers. Take a look.
You already know about remote managed services. But during the F5 Networks Partner Summit today, I heard another twist on the managed services market — called “Engineers on Demand.” It’s a simple concept that may generate incremental revenue for managed service providers. Here’s the scoop.
Cisco Systems Senior Director Al Safarikas, Autotask CEO Bob Godgart and THINKstrategies Managing Director Jeff Kaplan each work for vastly different organizations — massive, midsize and small companies. Still, they have something in common: They are evangelizing the move to next-generation Managed Services.
So what is Managed Services 3.0? Marketing hype, or a true shift in the MSP market? Here are some key thoughts from Godgart, Safarikas and Kaplan.
So, you want to launch a small business or reposition your company as a managed service provider (MSP). What steps can you take to maximize your chances for success? I’ve written a four-part blog to cover that very question. Tune in each day this week for the next chapter. Here’s part 3: Cash flow.
In the 1990s, long distance phone companies wanted to offer “last mile” local phone services. Now, a similar trend is emerging in the managed services market — where regional and even national MSPs want to offer personalized, local, on-site services.
Enter OnForce, the online market place where IT service providers can hire one another to manage specific technology projects. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a growing number of MSPs are leveraging the OnForce market place to outsource contract work to solutions providers.
Just ask DirectPointe, the top-ranked company on our 2008 MSPmentor 100 list.
The last thing the tech world needs is another acronym. But I was rather intrigued to learn about a managed service provider that offers so-called communications as a service (CaaS). The telecom company, Cypress Communications, is successfully branding CaaS as a way to describe hosted unified communications and VoIP services to customers. Here’s how.
During a panel discussion at the Kaseya User Conference, an interesting debate popped up: Do managed service providers really need to offer service level agreements (SLAs)? And if so, how should they be written? I heard a range of opinions, but here are the three I heard most often.
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.
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