MSPs Go Global - 7/2008 In today's competitive marketplace, it is difficult enough for a managed services provider (MSP) to get its business off the ground nationally. Business relationships must be built, services perfected, clients impressed and employees paid. But what steps must an MSP take when it sets its goals higher and aims to do business on an international level?
The questions you should ask yourself before taking your MSP business global.
KPIs Vital to Performance Goals - 7/2008 Key performance indicators (KPIs) are vital to helping a company meet its performance goals and maintain customer satisfaction. KPIs help companies assess their current performance in key areas and use the information gleaned to determine future actions and activities. Companies determine KPIs based on their primary goals. These may include revenue-based goals, customer perception or loyalty goals, measurable performance activities or a combination thereof. The process of defining goals and identifying which business practices contribute toward those goals is valuable for any company and helps key decision makers understand how to move those key indicators to positively affect performance.
How can KPIs help your business?
Testing is Key Part of a Disaster-Recovery Plan - 6/2008 This article is the second in a two-part series. While having a disaster-recovery plan in place is a good start for businesses small and large, it remains worthless if the effectiveness of that plan is never tested. Consider this scenario: a hurricane is bearing down on your business’ data center; your information technology (IT) team has spent countless hours crafting a disaster-recovery plan, but never got around to testing it. What happens when a real-life disaster strikes? It’s either sink or swim.
Learn more about the importance of testing your disaster-recovery plan.
Four Tips for Getting Noticed in the Competitive MSP Market - 6/2008 As the managed services provider (MSP) model of providing information technology (IT) solutions and service continues to become the rule rather than the exception, the market is becoming increasingly crowded and competitive. If you’re new to the MSP space—whether coming to it as a fresh face or as a value-added reseller (VAR) looking to adapt your business model—you’ll likely face the common challenge of distinguishing your business from the morass of competitors all vying for the same client base and dollars. As with most everything, some of the most obvious tactics work the best in the early going.
Read on for tips on getting your managed services business noticed.
Software Can Help Your Managed Services Business - 6/2008 Kristin Clifford, staff writer Managed services is becoming an ever more popular and profitable part of the IT Channel. Respondents to a recent CompTIA Web poll said that managed services or remote network monitoring were one of the most deployed solutions being offered by their company. The majority of respondents (65%) said their services revenue has experienced significant growth within the last twelve months.
Learn more about the tools that can help your managed services business.
Tips for Shifting Gears to Sell Managed Services - 6/2008 There was a time not that long ago when information technology (IT) resellers could think almost exclusively in terms of hardware and software sales. If a company needed a server, a reseller could provide a host of server options; if a company needed an enterprise-class e-mail solution, resellers had a plethora of offerings from a variety of companies to fill such a need.
Read more tips for selling managed services.
Ten Best Practices in Printer Fleet Management - 5/2008 Contributed Article by Darlene Sheldon, Director of Business Development with 366 Software Corporations recognize that they need to address out of control costs associated with network printing. How do they get there? Many are looking to solve it by outsourcing their managed print services. What’s hot? Gartner surveys show that organizations are currently researching the costs of office print, copy, and fax functions, and assessing a managed print services approach to meet its office output needs. In addition, most of these organizations believe they are playing catch-up to react appropriately to trends in office printing, such as the role of color printers, multifunctional products (MFPs), and managed print services.
Read on for the rest of the top 10 best practices in printer fleet management.
Customer Service Key to Closing Sales and Retaining Clients - 5/2008 Managed services providers (MSPs) generally have to expect to clear many hurdles when first approaching a potential client, and those hurdles only multiply while traversing the path to a long-term, working MSP/client relationship. While MSPs are a growing and influential force in the information technology (IT) realm, with companies small and large looking to them to fill specific IT requirements, they still have to navigate an IT business landscape that can be rife with preconceptions and suspicion.
Read more about how customer services plays a role in closing sales.
The Importance of Implementing a Disaster-Recovery Plan - 5/2008 This article is the first in a two-part series Disaster recovery is an important part of a business’ information technology (IT) plan. Folks in any IT department that have experienced unplanned downtime could testify to this. Many threats to IT environments exist and are lurking behind the scenes, waiting to attack at a moment’s notice. Some—like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc.—are unavoidable. Others, such as user errors or viruses, may be avoided if the right tools are in place. The key is implementing a disaster-recovery plan that works.
Learn what it takes to set up an effective disaster recovery plan.
Best Practices in Managed Services - 5/2008 By Rachel Fabro, staff writer Managed services providers (MSPs) are finding new opportunities to promote their services as more companies are looking to utilize managed services. MSPs are looking for the best way to present the value of their services to help build the success of their business. Managed Services Best Practices for Profit-Minded Service Providers, a CompTIA research study released October 2007, aimed to help service providers understand and utilize different opportunities by focusing on best practices of successful MSPs. The study highlighted over 20 best practices MSPs can utilize when creating and maintaining managed services. These practices can help both MSPs who are just starting out as well as the seasoned provider.
Read more about the other best practices successful MSPs use.
Managed Print Services – The Dealer Advantage - 5/2008 Only 10% of the $1.8 billion in document management services is billed by dealers, whereas 90% is provided by other document and print service providers who have long history with the corporation. These service providers have primarily focussed on providing consulting services for enterprise content management or production printing. These areas include: document strategy development, content delivery, document workflow, archiving, document delivery, forms, managed services, production printing, and transactional document outsourcing.
Click here to read more
Some Common Client Experiences Managed Services Providers Can Expect - 5/2008 One of the emerging necessities in today's information technology (IT) space has been a growing reliance on managed services providers (managed services providers). 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.
Learn more about the challenges MSPs face when working with customers.
Barbara Dove Follows Technology Trends - 5/2008 By Kristin Clifford, staff writer Barbara Dove has been in the IT industry for more than 20 years, and started her own company, Dove Help Desk, five years ago. "My background is in process engineering and quality," Dove said. "If you want to make things work better, you have to understand the problems people have. Since people are challenged with many computer problems, it seemed a good place to start, so I created a help desk. My background in customer service afforded me the tools I needed to run the business."
How has Barbara Dove grown her business?
MSPs Strive to Maintain Good Customer Relationships - 4/2008 Ask any business—large or small—what’s most important in keeping businesses successful and you’ll probably get the same answer: the customers. Customers, especially satisfied customers, are key to sustaining a business. Even though the world of information technology (IT) is constantly changing and shaping our business practices, one simple fact has gone unchanged since day one: Businesses that maintain good working relationships with clients will be successful.
How can you keep your customer retention up?
Tips for Selling the Promise of Security - 4/2008 One of the common issues facing managed service providers (MSPs) is assuaging a prospective client that bringing in an MSP won’t impact or compromise existing IT security and data protection. For many companies, inviting an MSP into their IT environments is an uncertain proposition, and it’s up to the MSP to make their case that they don’t pose a security risk. MSPs can more quickly establish a foundation with a client in a number of ways, making the client more comfortable when it comes to such security concerns. Each client is, of course, unique in terms of IT needs and security concerns, but some fairly basic general tactics can be employed to quell such concerns.
Read more about you can prove to your clients that their data is secure.
The Importance of Vertical-Specific Marketing for MSPs - 4/2008 Contributed Article by Erick Simpson, MCP, SBSC Senior Vice President/CIO MSP University Let’s discuss the importance of, and process whereby we identify our verticals in preparation to market our services as a Managed Services Provider. At some point we’re going to need to implement vertical-specific marketing, in order to leverage the knowledge we’ve gained from servicing a specific client vertical . If we are continually referred to new and different verticals, we never have the opportunity to recoup the lost labor hours we’ve spent learning how to address the last vertical client’s pain, workflow, processes and software, and leverage this knowledge with new clients in the same vertical.
Find out what Erick has to say about vertical-specific marketing.
A Short List for Selecting Any Managed Services Platform - 3/2008 Contributing article by Rob Bissett, Director of Product Management, N-able The IT channel and many of its influencers, including us, are predicting a big year for managed services around the globe. Yet many of the aspiring MSPs I speak to don’t know how to go about evaluating and selecting a managed services platform. Here’s the secret: At the end of the day, what you want to do is match up the platform’s capabilities and support with the needs and goals of your business.
How should you go about doing this?
CompTIA Research Study Highlights Benefits to Using Managed Services: Benefits Can Help Meet Compliance Requirements - 3/2008 Key industries including financial and healthcare services face the issue of solving IT and productivity problems by maintaining compliance requirements, and utilizing managed service providers (MSPs) can help reduce costs and boost productivity. However, industries are hesitant to turn to managed services because they find it difficult to justify the investment. Based on its industry research, CompTIA defines managed services as the ongoing management, monitoring, and maintenance of networks, software, hardware, and related IT services by an external organization.
Find out more about the state of Managed Services.
Managed Services Providers Take Steps to Attract—and Retain—Employees - 3/2008 No company benefits from high employee turnover. It takes too much time and energy to continuously find and train new hires. This is especially true in the ever-evolving world of information technology (IT), where losing highly experienced and talented employees could potentially put a company behind its competition. It only makes sense for companies to find new ways to make their work environments more inviting and offer incentives to keep the skilled employees where they are.
Find out how to avoid high employee turnover.
Rediscovering the Value of Managed Security Services Monitoring and analyzing company data can yield revealing results - 3/2008 With all the hype surrounding the ongoing emergence and popularity of managed services providers, it is sometimes forgotten that one of the most long-established areas of managed services has been serving the information technology (IT) space for the better part of the last decade. In fact, managed security services (MSS) providers have been helping companies analyze and realize the value of their information and network security investments while minimizing their security risks for much longer than many may realize, and they have played an important ongoing role in recognizing security trends and establishing best practices across the various industries.
Learn more about how MSS providers have helped the IT industry.
Six Strategies to Becoming a Successful MSP - 3/2008 Many companies seem to be jumping on the bandwagon to offer managed services. But managed services is more than the latest technology buzzword. And offering managed services involves more than simply monitoring a customer’s information technology (IT) department
Discover the strategies you need to become a successful MSP.
Environmentally Conscientious IT Disposal Reseller Strategies - 9/2007 With the environmental movement continuing to grow in influence, and with topics such as global warming - or climate change - regularly gracing the headlines of today's 24-7 news cycle, a burgeoning environmentally conscious worldwide populace is emerging. People now pause to consider the possible ramifications of where waste ends up, what happens to it, and what it all means for the planet and human civilization.
Find out how you promote environmental responsibility.
Fostering Company Culture and Retaining Valued Employees - 9/2007 Navigating the differing psychologies of today's workforce can be a tricky business. With baby boomers representing the old guard, and so-called "Generation X" and "Generation Y" employees making up the burgeoning younger ranks, companies large and small are confronted with the challenges of creating a working environment that fosters a culture continually motivating established employees while retaining younger, ambitious employees who are continually looking at other opportunities.
How can you create a working environment that meets the needs of all your employees?
Fitting Managed Services Into Your Budget - 9/2007 As information technology (IT) continues to evolve - becoming more complex and more critically important at the same time - businesses are increasingly coping with the difficulties inherent in staying current with the latest innovations while at the same time adhering to stricter government and industry regulations.
Could using an MSP make it easier to maintain your business?
Software Can Help your Managed Services Business - 9/2007 Managed services is becoming an ever more popular and profitable part of the IT Channel. Respondents to a recent CompTIA Web poll said that managed services or remote network monitoring were one of the most deployed solutions being offered by their company. The majority of respondents (65%) said their services revenue has experienced significant growth within the last twelve months. Offering managed services is an ideal way to transition from reseller to full solution provider. There are many tools on the market that can help your company do this.
Read how Jenaly uses software from Kaseya to provide managed services for their clients.
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