The Modern Office and You. 5 Ways to Capitalize on Cloud Opportunities

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1 The Modern Office and You 5 Ways to Capitalize on Cloud Opportunities

2 Introduction The age of Cloud Computing is gaining momentum. First made popular by Internet pioneers such as Google and Amazon, the Cloud presents an attractive option to businesses everywhere. As one industry analyst points out, Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. In lean economic times, the Cloud breathes new life into companies who might not have been able to afford to upgrade or add new technology projects to their budgets. As the number of Cloud services and offerings have increased, more and more small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are taking notice. This change in the technology model has given large vendors access to the SMB market a space they traditionally avoided. As a result, many managed service providers (MSPs) are nervous about the effects Cloud Computing will have on their business. Many MSPs are concerned that the Cloud will completely change their business structure and limit the number of services they can provide for clients. As clients begin moving all IT services to the Cloud, the larger fear is that MSPs will completely lose clients and be considered irrelevant. However, the Cloud should not be viewed as a threat to MSPs, but as an opportunity. Your clients will need help as they enter the Cloud and nobody knows your clients better than you do. modern office What is the Modern Office? The Modern Office is the current standard office setting, redefined and evolved to take full advantage of the wide array of modern technologies your clients use every day. The Modern Office represents the opportunity for you to further establish yourself into the clients workflow. Get as many anchor points in the Modern Office as you can and watch your profits soar.

3 Introduction Most SMBs do not fully understand all of the capabilities and technologies the Cloud makes possible. Plus, SMB owners want to get moving right away and they are more willing than ever to outsource. They are adding technology rather than payroll. This is where MSPs come in. With proper planning, MSPs can capture new business and build new revenue streams without adding a single new client. How? As your clients trusted advisor, MSPs can step in and take control of the Modern Office and act as the doorway to all things IT. As the relationship manager between the big Cloud companies and your clients, you become an essential component to your clients success.

4 Table of Contents 5 Ways to Capitalize on Cloud Opportunities Chapter 1 How the Cloud is Shaping the Modern Office Chapter 2 How to Thrive in the Age of Cloud Computing Chapter 3 Additional Strategies

5 Chapter 1 How the Cloud is Shaping the Modern Office

6 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 As the age of Cloud Computing evolves, more vendors are floating software and services right over to your clients. Business applications are now available to SMBs without the need for large hardware, software, or professional services investments. As SMBs look to increase efficiency and profitability, Cloud Computing offers a cost-effective way to add modern technologies to everyday business processes. The Cloud gives your clients access to more services than ever before. However, they still need technical assistance to help manage their integration of Cloud technologies. Many vendors simply do not have enough resources to support the specialized needs of SMBs. Additionally, SMBs do not have the personnel or knowledge to manage all of the new vendor relationships they may add through the Cloud. This is where you, the experienced and knowledgeable MSP, can take advantage of a fantastic opportunity. For MSPs, there are TWO KEYS to success with the Cloud: Create relationships with vendors so that SMBs are not tempted to bypass your relationship and go direct to the Cloud. Focus and improve on key contact points, or sales opportunities, with each client. In the Modern Office, it is not just about acquiring the latest gadgets businesses are seeking solutions that help them meet strategic goals. As your clients IT provider, you should seek an active role in helping them define their long-term technology strategy. This ensures you are involved in strategic planning from the start and can help guide your clients in making choices that are best for their business. quick tip Embrace the Cloud ConnectWise helps you be a part of the Cloud Computing Age. We offer software that helps ensure dependable help desk delivery and consistent billing for these new services. You ll also have access to best practices and toolkits that help you sell additional services including vendor management, printer management, VOIP, and more. 1 Chapter 1 How the Cloud is Shaping the Modern Office

7 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Follow these tips when talking to your clients: 1. Determine where the client wants their business to be and work together to build out an appropriate solution. 2. Avoid talking about technology, including services and PCs, because devices will be anywhere and anything (e.g. mobile, IP, hardware as a service, etc). 3. To achieve clients desired outcomes, your recommendations may include a combination of cloud services or other offerings. 4. As technology decisions are made and carried out, encourage your clients to rely on you as the point person for all IT vendors and technology. In order to successfully manage these new service offerings, MSPs can rely on a Professional Services Automation (PSA) solution to automate service workflows and ensure proper billing. A PSA solution fully integrates CRM, sales, help desk tickets, projects, managed services, SLAs, dispatching, time, and expenses to streamline IT companies and help them become more accountable, efficient and profitable. The right PSA solution will provide your company with a solid foundation to provide exceptional customer service. With effective service management, your company remains relevant and valuable to clients. Chapter 1 How the Cloud is Shaping the Modern Office

8 Chapter 2 How to Thrive in the Age of Cloud Computing

9 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Industry analysts have reported that small businesses are ready to outsource and they want to work with other small businesses. SMBs are also looking to implement technology faster than ever before in other words, they do not want to wait for traditional IT resolution times. If you want to thrive in the age of Cloud Computing, start by helping clients build out and manage their modern office. There are different areas in this ebook that MSPs can use as sticky points, or anchor points, to maintain and increase their value to clients. In the Modern Office, it s all about taking charge of SMB data and endpoints. Here is an in-depth look at four important relationships your business should seek to control as well as a discussion of other sales opportunities in the Cloud Age. 1. Help Desk Chances are, your business already provides this service to your clients. Now, it is more important than ever to refine your help desk functions and strengthen your expertise. Because Cloud offerings appear to have limited customer support, you need to ensure that your service team can step in to offer personal, responsive service when needed. You can take control for clients by managing vendor relationships and taking care of all their trouble tickets. Be the client s gateway to all things IT. Find ways to increase communication with your clients so that your business is top of mind when they are thinking about technology. Build your expertise, dem- Chapter 2 How to Thrive in the Age of Cloud Computing

10 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 onstrate value, and do what it takes to become the primary resource your clients turn to for help. Make sure you employ best practices for effective service delivery to boost success. For example, use a dispatcher to pick and choose which tickets to manage first and increase engineer utilization. 2. Vendor Management If you are like most MSPs, you have received phone calls at some point for problems with equipment or services that are not in your support agreement. Improve your stickiness to clients and become the point person for all vendors. Let s face it, customers want to deal with one person take ownership of your clients data infrastructure and use best practices to document vendor information, help desk support, and proactive maintenance and management. Start with managing printer, phone and broadband company relationships and add a consistent revenue stream to your business. For example, if you charge $99 a month to manage an account for your client, that s $1,200 more per year for every customer. 4. Co-Managed IT Some of your clients may completely outsource all their IT functions while some keep a small IT staff in house. An important tactic to improve your stickiness with these clients is to establish a solid partnership with internal IT departments. Some PSA solutions offer MSPs the ability to share tools with their clients. By helping your clients IT departments become more successful, you can help eliminate turf wars and build a synergistic relationship. With co-managed IT, the MSP can remain on point for help desk and provide streamline support services. 3. VoIP Meets Cloud Voice over IP (VoIP) is another source of recurring revenue for MSPs. Similar to many other services in this industry, everything is going digital. Hosted voice presents another Internet opportunity with servers, data and endpoints that MSPs can manage and run on your same network infrastructure. Seek to partner with vendors in the Cloud to control phone relationships. You can help clients control monthly costs by introducing unified messaging services between and voic . Chapter 2 How to Thrive in the Age of Cloud Computing

11 Chapter 3 Additional Strategies

12 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 There are numerous contact points that you can control with your client. Look for new technologies and services that enable you to not only add recurring revenue but also help further cement your business into your clients overall IT picture. Key contact points include: 5. Remote Monitoring and Automation Software as a Service (SaaS) Help Desk Infrastructure 6. Software as a Service (SaaS) Printer Management Storage, Backup and Disaster Recovery Vendor Management 7. Hardware as a Service (HaaS) 8. Printer management Professional Services Digital Signage 9. Telepresence 10. Digital signage Help Desk Infrastructure Software as a Subscription Service (SaaS) Application Printer Management Vendor Management Storage, Backup and Disaster Recovery 11. Surveillance 12. Professional services 13. Storage backup and disaster recovery services 14. management and administration Professional Services Digital Signage Hardware as a Service (HaaS) Internal IT Department Hardware as a Service (HaaS) Surveillance Security Internal IT Department 15. Security Surveillance Remote Monitoring and Automation 16. Infrastructure Management and Administration Security Voice Networking (VoIP) Voice Networking (VoIP) Telepresence Management and Administration Telepresence NetworkMonitoring Remote Monitoringand andautomation Administration For more information about the strategies listed above, download the Modern Office Poster ( Mobile Mobile Website Management Website Management Telecommuting Telecommuting Cloud Services Cloud Services Your Managed Service Provider (MSP) makes it their life s mission to know your technology needs inside and out. Use that expertise to your advantage and simplify your business operations by making your MSP the single resource to accomplish all your technical needs. Here are some of the many services that your MSP can implement for you to make your life easier. Chapter 3 Additional Strategies Solution Why it s important Solution Why it s important Digital Signage Keep all your employees informed of crucial business metrics and announcements by leveraging digital signage in your office. Remote Monitoring and Automation Employing a proactive monitoring system on your network ensures that problems are detected and resolved, often before you are even aware there was an issue. This keeps your business running without experiencing unproductive downtime. Management and Administration Communication is critical to keep your business running. Relying on an administration system ensures that you are in constant contact with your staff, clients and prospects without experiencing any downtime. Security Securing sensitive data is mission critical for any business. Make sure that you have a system in place that fully protects your website and proprietary business assets. Hardware as a Service (HaaS) Ensuring that your hardware is refreshed every few years will keep you in the latest Software as a Service (SaaS) Automatic system upgrades ensure that you are always running on the latest software

13 Conclusion Though many MSPs feel a sense of apprehension about Cloud Computing, there are actually countless opportunities for you. In fact, Cloud Computing needs MSPs to continue to provide SMB clients with essential services. Your goal? Focus on providing at least four or more of the opportunities we discussed in this paper to ensure you are well anchored into your clients. Each of these areas requires a solid plan to effectively integrate into the client business environment as well a ongoing management and monitoring. Using a PSA solution, you can successfully and confidentlyadd new contact points into your client relationship. The functionality in a PSA solution will enable you to effectively manage your clients technolog needs while providing you with a consistent time tracking and billing operation. As you continue to offeryour clients expert technology planning and assistance, your business will thrive in the age of Cloud Computing. Knorr, Eric, and Gruman, Galen, What Cloud Computing Really Means, About ConnectWise Available anytime, anywhere, 24/7, ConnectWise is the leading business management solution designed exclusively for technology organizations, such as software companies, hardware/ software resellers, IT solution providers, MSPs and System Integrators. Created by technology professionals, ConnectWise provides industry-leading software for support and ticketing, CRM, project management, invoicing, time tracking, procurement, and sales quotes and proposals. But ConnectWise is much more than just software. ConnectWise offers access to discounted tech certifications, community, best practices, forums, a robust online university, and business and technical consulting. Over 65,000 professionals, in 5,000+ companies, rely on ConnectWise to provide a 360 degree view of their technology driven organization.