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IT service companies
The ability to offer responsive programs and sell discounted block-time programs helps IT service providers start developing a recurring revenue stream — giving them more predictability when it comes to monthly cash flow. It also means they can monitor their customers’ systems and start doing some proactive work, which helps them move up the service maturity scale.
Critical Elements For Successful Managed-Time Service Offering
To successfully deliver managed-time services, MSPs must have the following critical components: remote monitoring and management technology; and operational, sales, and marketing best practices
Remote Monitoring and Management Technology – Right now, many IT service providers do not use any remote monitoring and management technology — they rely on customers or technicians in the field to report on problems. In other cases, they are using freeware or low-cost tools that aren’t designed for managing multiple customers. Because they have a scattering of tools, each with different interfaces and different operating paradigms, the cost of training technicians and managing customers increases. The absence of a single view of all customers raises the risk of something important being overlooked by harried technicians. A remote monitoring and management service allows MSPs to significantly increase the leverage they get out of their staff. If a technician doesn’t always have to be at a customer’s site to resolve issues, they can deal with more customers at a time. The end result is better technician utilization rates and higher profits.
There are many remote monitoring and management solutions on the market, which makes it difficult to know which one is right for your organization. A good remote monitoring and management solution will help you:
• Remotely monitor and manage multiple customers over the Internet
• Remotely upgrade your customer’s desktop with the latest software and remove costly site visits by your technicians
• Manage all of your customers’ assets from one location
• Streamline your reporting using built-in templates such as executive summary, service and device availability, capacity and utilization trending, notification, event and activity log reports
Operations, sales, and marketing best practices – In terms of operations, many IT service providers have little or no experience on how to effectively use remote monitoring and management and service management technology to deliver profitable managed services. Best practices help you avoid the long and costly exercise of learning how to configure the technology, and use it to monitor and manage customers. They also help lower the cost of delivering managed services while maintaining, or even improving, the level of service you are operating at.
Marketing and sales program development is also a typical area of weakness for most IT service companies. As companies move towards offering full managed services, they need to also evolve the way they package, price and sell to customers. When seeking a remote monitoring and management technology vendor, look for one that offers a comprehensive go-to-market program development and sales tool kit which can be instantly and easily branded. Generally these kits can include complete messaging and collateral, a sales presentation and a customer profile for the proposed managed-time program.
The Path to Managed Services: How to Automate Service Delivery and Offer Managed-Time Services
with Your Existing Business
To survive in today’s competitive IT services market, service companies who want to thrive need to find a better way to deliver services and run their business. Becoming a full managed service provider should be the long-term goal but it requires time, resources and a commitment to business transformation that many IT services companies simply don’t have, which is why many are considering managed-time services — automated service delivery combined with managed-time services programs. N-able has developed the Momentum System™, a proven, low-risk solution that may be right for your organization. For more information on the Momentum System,
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