Maybe not a very exciting title for a blog but this comes straight from a very mature MSP executive with whom I spoke this week. He says, when vendors spend too much time focusing on their dashboard and not enough time on the API capabilities, he knows he's dealing with a company that doesn't really understand MSPs.
The more mature MSPs, and this person certainly would qualify, want to have greater efficiencies and automation. Automation can really only be achieved when you have all your tools working in concert. Unless you get a single vendor that provides all your tools (and I'm not aware of any company that can boast that functionality), you need really good APIs to connect your tools and processes together. By doing this, you can achieve the automation necessary to scale your managed services practice.
It is healthy for me to have these discussions with members since I see a lot of new companies entering the market and placing a great deal of importance on how a vendor dashboard looks. Now, I know these niceties are important, but if the tool doesn't have compatibility with other solutions you are using, you are not automated. If you aren't automated, you now have to patch together these disparate solutions using human interaction. Anytime you have human interaction in your managed services process you run the risk of error. The more automation of your systems the less chance a human has of messing it up.
I wonder if more enabling technology vendors should heed this bit of advice from a mature MSP.
Written by Charles Weaver, CEO of MSPAlliance
