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Some Common Client Experiences Managed Services Providers Can Expect
One of the emerging necessities in today's information technology (IT) space has been a growing reliance on managed services providers (MSPs). In a time when innovations and regulations continually emerge, making it difficult to stay informed, managed services providers play an ongoing and crucial role as the informed and experienced third-party professionals. Managed services providers can act in a variety of roles ranging from IT consultants to outright IT providers and managers for companies of all sizes.
That's not to say MSPs are always perceived as shining knights atop white horses when they're brought onto a client's IT shop floor. For companies with established IT professionals and custom IT infrastructures, an incoming MSP can be viewed as a rival team coming to play on the home turf; suspicions must be overcome and trust established over time. MSPs have to familiarize themselves with the nuances of IT environments and professionals that have become accustomed to operating on their own without outside assistance or consultation.
The Challenges
According to Jay Johnson, vice president of managed services for Omaha, Neb.-based MSI Systems Integrators, MSPs face many challenges when they first meet with a client, as well as meeting the challenges of maintaining ongoing client relationships."
Something that's common in our space is the perception of a managed service provider coming into an IT shop, which can sometimes be viewed negatively by the existing customer staff," said Johnson. "So, there's some concern of loss of control, or the perception that people might lose their jobs, and other concerns you would expect when an outside IT firm comes through the doors. One of the practices we employ to get over this common hurdle is to establish, right up front, that were building a partnership with the customer at all levels, including managers and the technical support teams. We demonstrate our value to our customers and build relationships that have long-term benefits to both teams."
Once an MSP establishes itself with a client and builds a fledgling partnership, other pain points remain. For clients that have a well-established IT infrastructure and on-staff professionals who have long since been doing things their own way, a tough learning curve can result for all parties involved.
"We've had some instances where we've gone in and the client's technical resources were hesitant to partner with us," said Johnson. "What we've found over time is, as we start demonstrating value and giving them back time in their day that they can use to focus on more strategic items, they see our value, relationships are established and they see the benefit our services. In the early going, from a technology perspective, customers are testing us to ensure we really know what we're doing. But I think that all plays into the idea of relationship building."
It's the special case scenarios encountered by MSPs that need to be carefully overcome; these special cases can involve scenarios that have never been encountered before and, therefore, there's no point of reference for solving the problem. According to Johnson, such scenarios are occasionally encountered when they bring on a client that has legacy systems and has not had the opportunity to document their environment and operational procedures.
"In these types of environments, you can run into an expert who knows their IT infrastructure backwards and forwards, knows how everything works and has their set routines, but they have very little in the way of documentation detailing it all; it's all kept stored in their head," said Johnson. "We work collaboratively to get as much of that information as possible out in the open and down on paper, for the benefit of everyone."
Establishing Partnerships
Ultimately, most of the challenges faced by MSPs come down to the many individual personalities hunkered down within a clients walls. From the know-it-all IT professional second guessing everything, to the control bots who want to be involved in everything, to the legacy experts that have to learn a mountain of new technologies to bring themselves up to date; they all represent the basic potential challenges that make up the MSP experience.
"Our customer experiences have been positive," said Johnson. "There's always risk that customers are concerned about bringing in outside assistance. Once we're able to establish a partnership, and get that partnership idea to work its way throughout the organization, the customer can see the true value of our services."
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