The New Year is approaching, arguably the most popular time to set goals and make plans. This is a good practice for MSPs wanting to flex their IT muscle early next year, and not trail behind competitors. So get your MSP engaged in planning, goal setting and preparing for the New Year, before kickoffs, sales meetings and other events gobble up all your time. We outline the top three action items for your 2019 plan.
Budget Allocation
While being flush with funds never hurts, MSPs don’t need to run on a sky-high budget to deliver results. It’s “how much” and “where” you allocate what is in hand that matters. As an MSP, did you do a good job managing the budget last year, or do you need more discipline in 2019?
Ask yourself if you have the tools to handle your managed services. Going forward, would you invest in new tools to gain competitive advantages, or limp with what you have? If you chose the former, know that they come at a cost and it’s wise to keep some extra room in your IT budget. This can be done by proactively identifying the expenses and processes you can ditch or minimize, or consolidating existing tools with redundant functionalities. Also, see if investing in these services work better for you at the beginning of the financial cycle, or would you prefer beefing up your budget and making a move at a more suited time for your financial planning.
What about your own infrastructure – have you considered moving away from CAPEX costs to OPEX? It will not only save money on the upfront cost, but also give you the flexibility to scale resources up and down according to changing business needs.
That said, will this switch effect your service delivery? Will you be able to maintain or improve the quality of your services? Assessing all this beforehand will help you respond to a financial downturn.
Tech Check
Been waiting forever to make that upgrade? Want to cut down manual work, and add automation? Not happy with the lack of synergy between your present RMM and PSA solutions? Looking to incorporate more cloud offerings in your catalog? Is your backup and disaster recovery game on point? Is your security keeping pace with the evolving threat landscape?
Do you possess the tools you need to out-deliver your competition?
Find out if you are offering services that are most profitable, resonate with clients’ requirements, and help build a solid revenue stream. Scan your processes to spot where you lag, and how they can be streamlined. Perform a thorough analysis to check if your offerings have the right blend of services that fetch higher returns on your IT investments.
Lose Weight- Time to Go Lean!
When you choose to go lean as an MSP, you strive to remove redundancy and complexity by ejecting the non-value adding stuff (waste) from your system. This yields substantial returns— considering you have fewer moving parts to take care of. Not only is there a cost advantage, but also an opportunity to improve core business processes. Start with:
Streamlining Workflows – Identify inefficient processes in your current service model. Consolidate vendors, services and platforms and have fewer steps for each process. Speaking of vendor consolidation, at Kaseya, we have a suite of solutions designed to take MSPs to the next level and free up staff to focus on new revenue-generating opportunities.
Add Automation – Any conversation on building efficiency is incomplete without mentioning Automation. There are a plethora of regular mundane tasks that can be automated, done in less time, with more accuracy and fewer steps. Think patch installation, device discovery, device installation, batch file execution, anti-virus updates, registry changes, network monitoring, agent installation—the more the merrier! Automation reduces costs and cuts down on wasted time and resources, a simple, cost-effective way to optimize business processes.
IT Documentation- It is understandable why documenting IT processes is such a dreaded, time-consuming task. It does not have to be that way. Forget manual. Automate as much documentation as you can. In time, your tech will see how much easier their work is with all mission critical information is at their fingertips, how it fosters collaboration, enabling the delivery of fast, high-quality services.
Let Kaseya Help
At the start of a New Year, we look to wipe the proverbial slate clean and start again. The reason we asked you to start planning early is so you can re-evaluate what is working for your MSP and what is not. If you are running your MSP on a hodge-podge of DIY solutions and bargain basement vendors, generating efficiency and getting positive business results can be challenging.
Kaseya delivers the industry’s fastest, most reliable and functionally complete suite of tools built to take the complexity out of IT and reimagine the technician experience. With Kaseya IT Complete, MSPs reduce costs, using freed up money to create new revenue-generating activities. These include improving existing services, launching new services, or investing in sales and marketing.
Kaseya can help you streamline your business, save time and money – all paving the way to better margins. Kaseya helps MSPs:
- Operate more cost-efficiently with the use of a next-generation PSA built specifically for MSPs
- Expand revenue by exploiting next-generation RMM functionality
- Redirect money saved through efficiency to MSP 2.0 Emerging Solutions that address deepening SMB technology needs
And so much more.
To learn about Kaseya IT Completer Platform. Click Here.
To get a demo of VSA, click here.
