Quick Start to Managed IT Services -...

Quick Start to Managed IT Services

Brian Sherman

Principal Consultant

Tech Success Communications

CompTIA Faculty

Copyright (c) 2014 CompTIA Properties, LLC. All Rights Reserved. | CompTIA.org

Good to Great

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice,

and discipline.”

― Jim Collins


CompTIA Channel Training

About This Education The content and materials featured in this presentation are the result of a CompTIA community-led, collaborative development effort. An advisory group of channel leaders and technical experts identified training goals and objectives, while education specialists carried out development work based on the insights and information provided by the advisory group and other subject-matter experts. About CompTIA CompTIA is the voice of the world's information technology industry. As a non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of IT professionals and companies, we focus our programs on four main areas: education, certification, advocacy and philanthropy.


Resources

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CompTIA Communities

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Managed Services Companies Survey

• Median annual revenue: $3.5 million

• Median number of employees: 20

• Median number of customers:

o 72 (for best-in-class MSP)

o 86 (for average MSP)

• Annual revenue per customer:

o $30,800 (for best-in-class MSP)

o $12,000 (for average MSP)

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MSP Business Model Breakdown

Managed services

• 45.2 % (best in class)

• 31.6 % (average)

Consulting

• 23.6% (best in class)

• 22.2 % (average)

Products

22.8 % (best in class)

27.4% (average)

Projects

8.4 % (best in class)

18.8 % (average)

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Source: IPED MSP market research


Managed services help differentiate…

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Source: CompTIA Managed Services Community, State of the Managed Services Market


Reasons for offering managed services

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What do today’s MSPs offer?

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Services MSPs plan to add in next 12 months

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Agenda

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What’s Ahead

1 Customer collaboration

2 Building the right team

3 Partnering techniques

4 Pricing models

5 Investing in growth

CUSTOMER COLLABORATION

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Listen to your customers

New services sounding board

Create opportunities for formal and informal customer feedback

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Customer surveys

Take responses seriously

Periodic surveys – Every 6 months

– Less time intensive, but delay in feedback

– Personalized calling can be outsourced

– Expensive

– If conducted internally, can chill constructive feedback

Constant/Instant surveys – Can be incorporated into ticketing system for

specific immediate feedback

– Does not address umbrella issues

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CREATING THE RIGHT TEAM

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Everyone reports to the customer

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The right expertise for a 24/7 business

Day-to-day issues handled by entry-level staff

Complex issues should be handled by high-end resources

A balance of skill sets

– Generalists

– Subject Matter Experts

Create an organizational structure that encourages triage and escalation

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Invest in continual training

Grow your business, grow your staff

Provide opportunities for cross-training

Encourage self-study for certifications

Make continued learning a win/win

– Employees become more valuable

– Company becomes eligible for vendor accreditations

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Account Management

Client IT Managers – Dual role in sales and service

– Sales:

Deeper and Wider

Identify cross-selling opportunities

Help customers buy, rather than sell

– Service:

Can become single point of contact (SPOC)

Escalation of service-related issues

Coordinates sales, sales engineering, and service interactions

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Supporting the support personnel

Fight burn-out

– Empower employees to make a differences

– Create a fun environment

Encourage wellness

– Team building

– Outside of work interests

– Vacations

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PARTNERING TECHNIQUES

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Partner to gain proficiencies

Partnering allows you to

– Add incremental revenue and residual income stream

– Position as the trusted advisor

– Provide customers with complete solutions, even when you can’t do it all

– Gain useful referrals

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Becoming the trusted advisor

Focus on core competencies

– Outsource things you are not good or are not profitable

Remain in control

– Don’t force your customers to find partners for you

– Don’t be under-cut in pricing

– Remain as trusted advisor

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Working well with partners

Seek out barter opportunities

– Customers can be partners

– Strengthen relationships

– Increase stickiness

Pay attention to the agreement

– Make it equally valuable to both partners

– Clearly spell out responsibilities

– Stay in the middle or hand off customer?

You are responsible for partner performance

You relinquish some control

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PRICING MODELS

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What makes sense?

Hourly

Recurring fixed cost

Project-based

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Which makes sense for your business?

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HOURLY

• Easy to understand • Interests may be

misaligned • Provider not

incentivized to reduce issues

• Reactive

• Interests aligned • Predictable costs for

customer • Provider incentivized

to reduce issues • Per month/ per device

allows for growth • Unlimited liability

• Requires explicit agreement of what is included

• Can provide incentive for upselling

• Fixed bid preferred • Success contingent on strong

project management • Scope creep hazard

Icons are for placement only

RECURRING FIXED COST PROJECT BASED

INVESTING IN GROWTH

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Profit means focusing on growth opportunities

Build sales and marketing plans around growth opportunities

Seek opportunities your customers want

– Search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing

– Expand service hours to 24/7

– Expand service territories

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Which makes sense for your business?

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BUILD

Only if the opportunity is within your core competency

Only when you can fully support the solution on your own, but cannot afford to build

When the opportunity is too costly or outside your core competency

Icons are for placement only

BUY PARTNER


Investing in your business’s growth Create a repeatable on-boarding

process to easily transition new customers

– Documentation

– New customer training

– Manage expectations

Educate yourself and your team

Continuously improve

– Use feedback

– Strengthen weaknesses

Leverage happy customers into advocates

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SUMMARY

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Take-Aways

Nurture your customers

Assess, research and refine

Get the right team, infrastructure

Create the partnerships and pricing models that will help you succeed

Invest in growth and continuous improvement

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Refine, Validate and Differentiate Your Managed Services Business

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Thank you!

For more information and resources go to CompTIA.org

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Quick Start to Managed IT Services -...

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