Balancing Projects in a Managed Services World

The reason for this is because arriving at the right mixture of revenue categories is critical to achieving the desire balance of customer services, corporate revenue objectives, and also employee satisfaction and effective utilization of resources. Ask any project management firm how predictable their revenue and utilization projections are and you'll understand why developing a company revenue plan is important.

Have a Strategy

Many MSPs generate revenue by delivering a variety of services and products. Getting the right balance and mixture of revenue types is important. If, for example, you want to decrease the amount of projects you do for customers in order to increase the amount of effort around your managed services, you may decide to only to project work for existing managed customers. If a new client wants a project, you can tell them it's only available to customers under management.

Whatever your strategy, make sure it is well thought out and communicated to your company team members. Making sure everyone is on board, including sales, marketing, executives, and technical service delivery, is crucial to implementing a plan successfully.

Some of the best MSPs do a lot of project work; they just do it only for existing managed services customers. This helps the MSP plan more accurately for future projects, staffing, and other resources. It keeps the customers happy, and ensures that managed services is always the primary motivation and relationship bond between MSP and customer.