SkyKick er en global skyleverandør som hjelper over 20 000 partnere over hele verden med å skalere skytilbudet og automatisere sine prosesser. SkyKick er et selskap født i skyen, og deres løsninger hjelper partnere med å migrere til Microsoft 365, ta backup av data til Azure og automatisere de daglige oppgavene IT jobber med.
Janette Dial fra Skykick har skrevet et gjesteinnlegg om hvordan man ved hjelp av 3 enkle steg kan komme i gang med pakketering av skytjenester. Janette er Partner Development Director i Norden for Skykick, hvor hun jobber tett sammen med deres topp 100–partnere i Norge, Sverige, Danmark og Finland.
Many IT providers have had to reinvent their business models in the past years. IT providers have moved from project-based work and transactional billing cycles to a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) model. For consumer technologies this has been a norm for years, but how to make it work in the IT business and what are the benefits?
The past year probably showed us how important the recurring revenue stream is. When the world went on hold during the early pandemic, many IT businesses may have seen a decline in their consulting services, but a steady revenue coming through the recurring services. The MSPs who had a steady MRR model last spring secured a steady cash-flow as they were not depended only on project-based business.
Many of the SkyKick partners have created an excellent modern workplace offering – tying multiple SaaS applications for their one packaged solution with a simple monthly fee. This helps IT providers on the operational side as well, but the real impact is on the steady cashflow and that the customers can be assured what their monthly bill is and what it includes.
How to get started then on creating a managed service offering?
1. Creating the managed service strategy and offering
It is not that difficult – understand what customers need and do not try to re-invent the wheel.
You are probably already selling solutions to your customers – now it is time to review your product range and see if there are some gaps which need to be filled in the cloud era. Creating a bundle offering is not hard, what needs to be understood is what customers need and start from there. Most of us are currently working remotely and probably will be in the future, so it is an excellent time to review the products to stay relevant.
Example from a modern workplace offering: Office 365 seat, full backup seat, antivirus product, antispam product, device encryption, device monitoring and reporting, remote support and onsite support.
2. Test your offer
Many MSPs offer various levels of offering with different pricing. Let us call them MSP bundles bronze, silver and gold in this blog post. Those bundles would always include the main product which in remote work setting is Office 365 seat. The better the service, the higher the cost. Therefore, the bronze offering would not necessarily include antivirus or antispam or would not include unlimited support hours like the gold bundle. Giving different options is necessary to serve various customers, but to keep the operational side simple, packaging is necessary. Testing your offer with a few customers gives you an idea if the price point is reasonable or if you are missing some of the key products they would like to have. Remember, you do not need to get it right in the first go – customer feedback guides you to the right path.
3. Differentiate
Norway, as a mature market, has a solid base of MSPs who have a deep knowledge of cloud solutions. That is why it is important to differentiate your offering, your brand and customer service. Normally gaining a competitive advantage has put a focus on certain industries. In Norway this has meant for example on being focused on the oil and gas or fish industry. What the past year has taught us too is to have a diverse customer base. How you can differentiate in an advanced market like Norway is to give simple offerings and exceptional service to your customers.
I hope these 3 steps help you to get started when you are creating a managed service strategy. At SkyKick, we love to help our partners to succeed – please reach out to us and we can give you ideas on how to create the managed service offering and how to include automated SkyKick products.
For spørsmål rundt Skykick, kontakt Kristin Bøhn på +47 47 83 25 37 eller på e-post/Teams:
Du kan også ta kontakt med Janette Dial på e-post eller LinkedIn:
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