The face of the MSP (managed IT services provider) marketplace is changing rapidly. Not so long ago the keys to success for most MSPs revolved around recommending or selling the newest and best hardware and software products to their customers. But as more and more companies migrate to the cloud, that approach is no longer adequate.
The Cloud’s XaaS Model Changes Everything for MSPs
Perhaps the most important feature of the cloud model is that it allows customers to meet many, if not all, of their IT requirements by making use of pay-as-you-go services offered by cloud providers. This “anything as a service” (XaaS) approach reduces, or in some cases totally eliminates, the necessity of purchasing specific hardware/software solutions. For example, many companies no longer meet their document processing needs by installing Microsoft Office on their computers. Instead they simply subscribe to Office 365 and receive the services they need through the cloud.
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In today’s IT environment customers aren’t looking for products, but for solutions. That means MSPs must now demonstrate that they provide a unique value proposition for customers who can theoretically go directly to a CSP (cloud service provider) to obtain almost any type of IT service they might need.
Yet the good news for MSPs is that customers aren’t really looking for services – they’re looking for solutions to the business issues they face. As IT business coach Mike Schmidtmann puts it, “Cloud is a business conversation, not a price-and-product conversation.”
So, the MSPs that survive and thrive in the age of the cloud will be those who shift away from simply offering specific products, and move toward providing strategic IT solutions that help their customers realize their business objectives.
A Good MSP Will Help Customers Develop an IT Strategy Based on Business Goals
Most MSP clients are not interested in IT per se. Their focus is on using IT effectively to enhance their business operations. So, the first service a cloud-savvy MSP can provide to their customers is to help them develop a comprehensive IT strategy that is closely aligned with the company’s business objectives. In effect, the MSP will seek to become an extension of the customer’s own IT staff, providing a depth of expertise and operational capability that would be very difficult for the customer to maintain in-house.
Once armed with a good understanding of the customer’s business goals, an MSP can help them develop a comprehensive IT strategy that will support those objectives. So, the first conversations between MSPs and their customers shouldn’t be about specific solutions, but about the goals and strategy that customer is pursuing for both the present and the future of its business.
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A Good MSP Will Identify Specific Cloud Solutions That Meet Customer Needs
A recent CompTIA survey reveals that many companies, especially smaller ones, have a great deal of difficulty in aligning their IT infrastructure with their business strategy. They simply don’t have the in-house technological expertise to do so effectively. John Burgess, president of an MSP in Little Rock, AR, says that such companies are “usually fairly ad hoc and reactionary in how they manage and spend technology.”
Here’s where the added value an MSP partner can provide becomes clearly evident. A good MSP can help identify the specific available cloud services that best fit the customer’s business strategy. In doing so, the MSP will be looking not just at individual services and the CSPs that offer them, but at how those services can be integrated into a unified system that can be effectively managed as a single solution.
A Good MSP Will Manage the Customer’s Cloud Infrastructure
Perhaps the most important service a good MSP can offer is to relieve customers of the burden of having to worry about their IT operations. This involves the capability to initially put the system in place, to monitor its operations on a 24/7/365 basis, and to proactively handle problem resolution and upgrades to system components.
A Good MSP Will Establish Relationships With Expert Partners
Few MSPs have the resources to develop and maintain in-house the kind of comprehensive cloud expertise required to fully support their customers on their own. Most will benefit from having specialized expert partners that can support the MSP in the services they offer to customers.
A good example of such a partner is Zadara Storage. As a storage-as-a-service (STaaS) provider, Zadara offers a high level of expertise in all elements of storage, whether in the public cloud, private clouds, or customers’ on-premises data centers. In fact, Zadara’s VPSA Storage Arrays are already installed in the facilities of major public cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and are available for installation on customer premises as the basis of a private or hybrid cloud solution.
Whether the VPSA Storage Arrays they use are in the cloud, on-premises, or both, Zadara customers never buy storage hardware. Instead, they purchase storage services, paying a monthly fee for only the amount of storage they actually use during that billing period.
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