Top 5 Business Priorities for Managed Service Providers and IT Resellers

Netenrich leads efforts to help managed service providers modernize IT services to accelerate business growth.

In meeting with many of our channel partners, business leaders are asking about new ways to deliver modern services and capabilities to drive digital transformation capabilities. For them, it’s top of mind to expand their business and find new revenue streams. For their customers, it’s helping them accelerate digital transformation tied to critical business initiatives. They’re also focused on solving these key questions:

• How do we migrate from traditional infrastructure management offerings to a digital IT operations focus?
• How does modern IT operations span networks, security and cloud?
• What new capabilities and sales strategies are needed?
• What are the key areas critical to success?
• How do you measure ROI and success?

Our unique approach at Netenrich focuses on digital IT operations transformation to drive outcomes across IT network, cybersecurity and cloud. No longer are these siloed functions, rather they are data-driven, AI and automated-led solutions to gain better visibility, faster resolution and increased operational efficiencies. Our innovative Resolution Intelligence Cloud™ platform serves as the underlying foundation to scale operations for enterprises and service providers.

Raju Chekuri, CEO of Netenrich, and Justin Crotty, SVP of Channels at Netenrich, dive deeper into the five key business priorities for IT leaders and managed service providers in a recent video series. The video highlights and conversations are shared below.

Raju Chekuri: Justin, you’re our world class channel prophet, talking to channel partners on a daily basis. Share with us some of the major areas our partners are focused on in building their business.

Obviously, every partner is a little different. But I do think there are some common themes around the challenges they face and the ever-evolving IT landscape. But irrespective of that, I think there are a few key areas that the management teams of service providers are concerned about. ~ Justin Crotty

1. Service portfolio

The first area focuses on the providers’ service portfolio. I think things are getting commoditized faster than people think they are. I’m not suggesting that the MSP model is commoditizing. The components of it and certain capabilities are. But is your service portfolio modernized? The answer is probably going to be “not all of it.”

One of the litmus tests that a service provider could apply is, “If we were to go into a mid-market customer, and sell IT to the CIO or CEO – what would they ask for?” What is the value of our IT solutions and services? Are there gaps in our current service portfolio with capabilities not deemed highly valuable? Do we include the right technologies? Do we have the breadth of solutions? Do we have the right service proposition? Are we able to solve for problems? These are the types of questions service providers will need to address.

2. Growth strategy

What is our growth strategy? This is a classic chicken and egg scenario. Do we focus on attracting new customers or growing our current customers? I strongly believe there is growth opportunity with current customers in helping them understand expanded capabilities and increased value propositions tied to outcomes.

On the other hand, do we have a value proposition for new clients? Can we go up market cap? Do we have the right solutions to do that? For managed service providers, it’s important to look at both strategies, new business and existing customers. It’s more advantageous to upsell and manage current customers while attracting new customers takes time and investment. In the long run, both sales segments are important and vital to sustaining business growth.

3. Profitability

And that leads to the profitability equation. Do IT leaders understand their solutions’ margins? Is this where we want our margins to be? What margin and revenue levels are we forecasting for the future? The good news is there are ways to address all of this. As a solutions and services provider, we can help our partners in managing it all.

4. Technical Resources & Responsibilities

Service providers must also consider how their technical resources are being utilized. Their NOC or SOC team of experts are premium and incur costly business expenses. It’s important for IT leaders to understand what these experts are working on. Do they have the right tools to do their jobs? How much time and effort is needed to accomplish tasks?

This group of experts are a service provider’s most valued technical resources so it’s to their advantage to better understand team’s responsibilities in order to tie their value to true costs. It’s more than just their salary. It’s the total cost of their work and overall service that delivers services and value to a service provider’s customers.

5. Functional Sourcing Approach

When organizations struggle with their IT, service providers struggle as well and take the brunt in handling all the challenges and responsibilities. Confusion entails around job roles where internal teams cover specific or major tasks. Managed service providers feel they need to resolve everything themselves. Do we have the right experts in place? Are there tooling or process issues or technical skills gap concerns?

Managed service providers need to have an open minded approach to examining their services and providing recommendations to clarify functions and outcomes with their customers. Determine which capabilities internal teams would cover while identifying which specific tasks the providers would handle.

The savvier and growth minded service providers are thinking in modern ways with the mentality “We will not continue doing everything ourselves. This outdated thinking no longer works.” Instead IT service providers need to modernize their approach, look to new technologies, and partner with other solutions and services vendors like Netenrich to enhance their overall service offerings.

Learn more about Resolution Intelligence Cloud and Threat Detection solutions as the foundation of your digital operations across NetOps, SecOps and CloudOps.

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