By Cam Roberson, Director of the Reseller Channel for Beachhead Solutions
Product sales are flat, monthly services are up, and MSPs -- whose projected growth tops $250 billion by 2018 -- seem poised to take over the market. But accelerating growth always comes coupled with fierce competition. When every MSP is trying to carve its own piece of that $250 billion pie, each MSP has to be on trend to stay in the market or ahead of the curve if they want a bigger share of the projected spoils. So what's an MSP to do? Here are three key strategies we think MSPs should consider to insure viability.
Go Hybrid -- and We're Not Talking Cars
Just because you're an MSP doesn't mean you shouldn't offer products -- and vice versa. Hybrid MSPs that provide both products and services have higher margins than providers that only offer monthly services. To a certain extent, vendors who are already offering products are likely to butt into the MSP market by offering some of their products on a monthly basis, but established MSP can take a leaf from their book and offer products as well.
MSPs can also keep an eye on other complementary services that they can provide that will enhance their own offerings and improve their customers' experiences. Not only are these other offerings additional sources of revenue, they can be a means of attracting new customers to the MSP side of your business. If the different aspects of your business work particularly well with each other, you can become a one-stop shop for your customers.
Flex Those Billing Muscles
Flexibility as a business practice might have become a cliché, but it remains a point worth underscoring again. Flexible billing options, in particular, are an important to retaining customers. Obviously, having a variety of billing options is important, but be very flexible in your offerings.
Logic and expectations might suggest that offering year or longer contracts will help retain customers -- because those customers are agreeing to stay with you for longer periods of time. However, customers on monthly billing cycles tend to stay longer. Maybe it's just more difficult to convince customers to sign longer contracts. Maybe it's some strange reverse psychology. Whatever it is, monthly billing options help to attract and keep customers.
Simple is Smart, Smart is Simple
The solutions you provide for your customers should be simple and easy-to-manage – and not cause rebellion by impacted employees whose productivity has been impacted. You know that and you know your customers want that. However, you should also be on the look out for solutions that make things simpler for your business, too.
What does that mean? Your goal is to deliver services to your customers, so the solutions you manage should make that delivery easy and as seamless as possible. Whether the service is mobile security, network monitoring, or some other product, how easy product providers make your job should be one of your primary concerns. For instance, how easy is it to share admin powers with your customers for managing mobile security? If you need to divide admin access among your customers, extending certain features (like remote wiping) to some while not others, how easy is it to do that with the products and businesses you're working with? In addition, what's their customer service like? If your customer has a problem with one of their products, how easy and quickly would it be to resolve that issue?
The products you use should make both your business and your customers' business run as smooth as possible -- don't skimp on your own business because you think the product is better for the customer. Better for you is better for them.
MSPs are in an exciting, fast-growing space. Taking advantage of these three tips isn't a guarantee for your business, but they are things to keep in mind in the face of this quickly changing market.
