Wednesday, November 17, 2010

How to become an MSP

Managed Services is the growing sector because technology is outpacing the ability of most businesses to manage it, maintain it, and keep the business running.

"An increasing number of enterprises report utilization of managed services. A 2009 Frost & Sullivan survey, that interviewed 102 U.S. C-Level executives, revealed that companies had either maintained or increased their use of managed services within the previous 12 months." [sipthat]

If you are looking to transform your ISP business into an MSP (managed services provider), here is an article in Phone+ about Lessons Learned by MSP's. "Between targeted industry organizations such as the MSP Alliance, MSP Partners and MSP University; associations such as CompTIA; as well as distributors and vendors, channel partners now have more information on becoming an MSP than they know what to do with." That's good and bad.

Maybe you don't want to convert to a full-fledged MSP. Maybe you want to just partner with one. Here's an article that lists some criteria to use when choosing a partner.

MSP falls into lots of sectors from security to Microsoft to systems integration to vendor specific (like Cisco). But it's Layer 1 or Layer 7 and right now it looks like Layer 7 (Apps, Managed Services, outsourced IT). This may not be the answer for all of you, but Change is Happening and you have to choose a direction. Choosing to do nothing due to fear or discomfort is still a choice, just not a very good one.

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