Managed Service Providers (MSPs) have evolved from the traditional ‘break fix’ model of IT servicing that was common in the 90’s, where the more things go wrong, the more profitable an IT support provider could be.
Fortunately for clients, this service model also matured into a fixed price offering – but it was turbulent for the providers in its early iterations. The challenge being that there was a fixed price for any client with any environment, and the pinch of unexpected problems made it impossible to service a customer efficiently and profitably.
Standardisation the norm
To combat this, some providers required the use of standardised hardware (thereby eliminating one particularly costly avenue of support), whilst others went down the road of adding significant amounts of exclusions to protect profitability.
Progressively we saw providers co-locating hardware in datacentres (or more scarily, personally) and selling it as IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), knowing the hardware redundancy and refresh cycle meant lower downtime and higher profitability, utilising the same hardware for multiple clients.
Managed Services
Bundling was another evolution that saw providers adding several services such as web hosting, telephony, app development, disaster recovery or simply adding the word ‘managed’ in front of something they were already doing in order to sell it as a maintained solution. With so many organisations trying to be a ‘jack of all trades’ and on that quest for competitive edge, they were not focusing on their customers and core capabilities.
Anywhere, anytime support
Remote monitoring and maintenance software solutions have allowed for the automation of support to geo-sporadic devices, reducing cost of delivery, and improving the accuracy in which applications, updates and security are deployed. Any provider worth their salt invested in these tools to do this efficiently.
More recently, a Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) has been the trend, offering a strategic resource (largely to small to medium sized businesses) to remove the burden of a diverse and demanding job function. For many, it is a more cost effective and strategic approach that can align with your business goals.
Good companies have further matched these trends with increased focus on client satisfaction and process improvement, including CSAT measurements, improved feedback loops and documented repeatable processes.
Keep it simple
Our own evolution has followed some of these paths and we are always on the watch for innovative ways to reduce customer downtime, increase efficiency of support and improve customer satisfaction. We work with our clients to ‘fill the gaps’ and provide the expertise required; the trusted adviser and extension of your team.
Our current Managed Care offering includes a bunch of ‘must haves’, like:
- Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, Mail Filtering
- Office 365 Backup and Recovery
- Workstation rollover services
- Unlimited support
- Remote monitoring and maintenance.
We keep our offerings simple and inclusive, at a per user cost so you don’t need a PhD to understand the model. Give us a call on 1300 10 10 40 to discuss further.
