Great Managed Service Providers (MSP) Value Proposition
Introduction
You can think of a Managed Services Provider value proposition in two frameworks or business models:
MSP 1.0 – During the earlier days of managed services offers, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) offered a more rudimentary value proposition of break-fix services and a focus on the value of keeping your technology up and working.
MSP 2.0 – In this evolved version of MSPs 1.0, you still receive the primary MSP 1.0 value of keeping your technology up and running. However, you benefit from the additional value provided by focusing on your business goals and strategies.
For example, your MSP 2.0 provider will advise on ways to streamline various services and reduce costs to your business while getting the latest in security and enhanced efficiency added to your business processes. The bottom line is a great managed services provider value proposition has evolved from services that merely support technology to providing value as a trusted advisor.
The Problem
Your company has many needs for IT Services and Support including premises, cloud, and hybrid-based IT infrastructure including servers, routers, switches, access points, and endpoints like desktops, laptops, VoIP phones, tablets, smartphones, etc.
Further, your company also has a collection of services and applications such as:
- Email, instant messaging, and desktop productivity applications
- IP-based office phones and unified messaging
- Wired and wireless on-premise network access
- VPN applications
- Marketing and sales systems
- Firewalls, virus scanners, security and/or backup “appliances.”
- Accounting, HR, ERP, project management, etc. applications
This can lead to a multitude of potential support problems:
- Who is responsible for what hardware? Cloud-based services?
- Who do you call if something “breaks”?
- How are software licenses managed for both endpoints and infrastructure (e.g. routers and servers)?
- Who is responsible for determining if a security intrusion happened in the cloud/premise, or endpoint? Who gets it fixed?
- Finally, Who determines what patches need to be installed? Tests them? Configures and installs?
How a Great Managed Service Provider’s value proposition solves problems with these specific benefits:
- Prevents downtime – Proactive maintenance and monitoring keeps your endpoints and network running so you can focus on your core business.
- Avoid lost productivity from downtime and all of the requisite activities you’d have to complete on your own to restore and maintain service.
- Avoid unscheduled costs and gain predictable spending. Imagine being able to budget for recurring IT monitoring and support costs month-after-month. Thus, the budget more effectively for unplanned outages and gain more peace of mind.
- Proactive IT security and managed datacenter service for backup – think of insurance for your business’s data and IT infrastructure.
- Higher-value managed services become a partnership which augments the client’s in-house capabilities with the MSP’s expertise.
- Avoid potential damage to your business’ reputation – client organization understand that their MSP partners use the latest tools and automation to monitor their IT infrastructure.
A Case Study of a large industrial company – Why Clients partner with one MSP over another
An industrial company with a large outside plant in remote locations was challenged to run operations at a low cost while managing the complexity of various technology solutions to stay competitive. Further, the client also needed to maintain 100% uptime and make critical decisions in real-time for inaccessible remote locations.
The value of ExterNetworks’ Managed Services soon became a central component of the client’s operations strategy for complete network management. As a result, the client could now focus on its core competencies and strategic operations rather than allocating time and resources to run their IT operations.
The following are some of the preliminary benefits that were measured when partnering with ExterNetworks:
- 100% resolution rate for events that impacted critical business services
- 96% improvement in response rate for network outages at remote locations
- 54% reduction (on average) in restoration time for network outages at remote locations
- Nearly 35% reduction in IT operations costs
- Curbed BYOD security threats by educating employees and implementing security policies
- Maintained 97% network uptime to ensure machine-to-machine connections
- Efficient tracking of Network Health, SLAs, full Quality of Service (QoS) via exhaustive reports
- Proactive monitoring and fault resolution leading to reduced downtime
- Improved focus on service quality leading to enhanced customer satisfaction across all customer contact points
What ExterNetworks Offers and How we’re different
A Managed Services Provider(MSP) value proposition includes offering services customized for each client. Thus, each client can stay ahead of their competition and deliver their products and services with a faster time-to-market. As a result, a great MSP will partner with their clients and help them deliver superior service and products to their clients.
ExterNetworks has a detailed onboarding process which outlines detailed steps to turn-up the appropriate services for new clients. ExterNetworks and their clients may decide on services that include:
- Efficient Handling of Alarm Management System through Network Fault Management
- Efficient Handling of Trouble Ticketing through Service Fault Management
- Performance Management for reporting and threshold levels
- Providing business process control for network problem resolution
- Inventory Management for network discovery and topology
- KPI and SLA monitoring and reporting through Service Level Management
- Streamlining the customer-centric root cause analysis to reduce Mean-Time-to-Restore and Mean-Time-to-Repair
- End-to-end 24x7x365 live monitoring and technical support, with a fully staffed NOC to handle global operations
Learn more about What MSPs offer by clicking here.
ExterNetworks offers strategy sessions to help your business grow by looking at the big picture of your business and your industry, not just your immediate IT needs. We’ll talk about emerging technologies and how they may help your business thrive and grow. Learn what it’s like to enjoy a true consultative relationship with your MSP.
ExterNetworks serves as your trusted business partner by offering far more than IT “support.” We surpass other MSPs as we also offer you software development, technology staffing, and serve as a value-added reseller helping you to offer new services to deploy – all from one trusted partner.
You can worry less about your IT issues
Spend more time thinking about how your partnership with ExterNetworks will enhance your business growth with tools to help you fend off competition. Let us be an extension of your organization.
