I had a visit from a reader of the blog this last Friday afternoon - he came by our office and we had a nice chat.
We were talking about his challenges growing his business, and he asked me for some specific advice about which service plans to offer. His market is primarily made up of very small offices, say 3-10 people, mostly branch offices of firms in major cities.
He’s been in business for several years, but is just really making the transition to managed services in the last year, and is having a bit of a struggle getting traction.
After a brief discussion about his plans, it occurred to me that I don’t think he should be focused on selling managed services.
Am I crazy? Isn’t managed services the holy grail?
Well, yes and no - it depends on how you define managed services. This is no trivial point, considering that just about every other business today is a “managed service provider”. I think the way he and I define managed services - at least in regards to the market we are serving - is essentially what Everon is offering in our Managed IT Service plans. Essentially - charging your customers a flat fee for 100% support of their systems.
What I told him is that I thought he was better off selling something more similar to our On Demand plans, and not taking on the operational burdens or risks associated with a full managed services offering (again, defined as being similar to what Everon is offering).
Why?
Because I think the current managed services model is actually already being made obsolete by a new model that I will refer to as Technology as a Service - TaaS (Full disclosure: the first person I heard use this was Arnie Bellini of Connectwise). Maybe this is just Managed Services 2.0, but there are some very key differences, and I didn’t feel like it was worth his time to invest in creating the “old” managed services model when he could spend his time on the “new” one.
More on the “new” model in future posts - I’m not quite ready to reveal my full thoughts just yet.
The point here is that you shouldn’t blindly pursue Everon’s version of the managed services model or any other model just because it’s the “in” thing at the moment. In fact, that may make it a good reason not to do it! It’s critical to think about the future and use your own judgment to determine how you should service your customers and operate your business.
You should, however, learn from the fundamental principles of the managed services model and why it has been so popular, and use these insights to shape your future approach.
MRC
PS - More on the managed services model and my thoughts on the direction of the industry can be found at our membership site - MSPCoach.
