Never before have we been in an economy where it is more important to distinguish yourself from the rest of the crowd. I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how to sell managed services in a down economy and my honest view is this is not a good approach. At least for the foreseeable future, managed services should be about delivering value in IT, controlling costs, and improving efficiencies, not about selling a solution. Here’s why I think this way.
In today’s economy businesses are searching for ways to become more lean and efficient. Company’s are desperately trying to find ways to cut costs and extract more out of what they already have. The notion of “buying” something just isn’t in their vocabulary right now. Some of you might be wondering why I’m saying this when managed services is expected to grow by 20% in 2009. Well, I believe we will likely hit that 20% growth mark (we might even exceed it). But I don’t believe MSPs will be successful