Managed service providers (MSPs) look to increase your revenue and provide you with a solid support base to attain success. As the world of managed IT services continues to evolve, MSPs must back up the dynamic needs of their clients, contribute to a healthy ROI, and negate the need for additional resources.
According to a study by 451 Research, 50% of organizations surveyed consider managed service providers to be crucial for their digital transformation success. 60% of them also said they would be willing to pay a 100% premium over standard service rates for expert sourcing, implementation, and change management help. As companies continue to demand a higher level of service to take themselves to the next level of agility, here are a few challenges faced by managed service providers today and how to overcome them.
1) Cloud Adoption
“Cloud-first” and “cloud-only” technologies are fast replacing monolithic on-premise technologies. Gartner expects the global cloud adoption market to be valued at $500 billion by 2020. Most of innovation today is cloud-centric, and this easing clients onto the cloud is one the major expectancies of a managed provider.
2) Growing Customer Expectations
Millennial consumers have higher expectations than their predecessors. In the age of smartphones and the “app culture,” customers today demand innovative and customized solutions catering to their specific needs. Digital consumers also have a plethora of choices to select from every time they’re in the market for a product. MSPs have to maintain the highest levels of consumer service and innovative products in their catalogue to continue being in business.
3) Cloud Invoices and Multiple Accounts
Multi-cloud services often bring together multiple systems and services under one umbrella. Consolidation, monitoring, and management of these then become a challenge for MSPs without a proper plan. Maintaining transparency while updating user changes, deployment, resource management, and coordinating invoices on the go are major challenges that only the most resourceful of managed it providers can fulfil.
4) Pricing
Let’s be honest, no matter how many guides you read on what are the features and services you should expect from your MSP, pricing still remains the number one priority for most companies. In a hyper-competitive market, there are plenty of options to choose from and everyone offers a deal. As an MSP, it becomes difficult to provide some services at a lower cost than some others. It’s even trickier to convince customers of the need for a higher rate due to market rate increases during renewals.
It's important for consumers to understand that when a vendor offers alarmingly low prices, it most likely means they will look to cut corners somewhere. It’s beneficial for the client and the MSP to come to a mutual agreement on pricing and not expect a multitude of discounts at the cost of quality service.
5) Integrations and Delivery
Integrations are a key challenge faced by most MSPs during implementation. Adapting workloads for the cloud and vindicating operational lifecycles whilst maintaining stable infrastructure requirements require extensive training and collaboration between vendors and clients.
A unified enterprise management solution that can handle multiple clients and automate other business functions like application discovery, remote monitoring, invoicing, backup, support, ticketing, coupled with an MSP that provides a high degree of customization resources and seamless implementation capabilities, can greatly improve your onboarding experience onto the cloud.
ProV is a dedicated MSP with years of experience under its belt of providing faster response times, technology advances, and expert information management and delivery. We allow businesses to save on cost and choose a package suitable to their needs. We are an extension of your IT department without you having to deal with the hassle and upkeep of the same. To learn more about what an able managed services provider looks like, download our FREE checklist below. For anything else, drop a comment or contact us today.
