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 Channel Futures

Best Practices


OnForce: Delivering the Last Mile for Managed Services?

  • Written by Joe Panettieri 1
  • June 17, 2008

In the 1990s, long distance phone companies wanted to offer “last mile” local phone services. Now, a similar trend is emerging in the managed services market — where regional and even national MSPs want to offer personalized, local, on-site services.

Enter OnForce, the online market place where IT service providers can hire one another to manage specific technology projects. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a growing number of MSPs are leveraging the OnForce market place to outsource contract work to solutions providers.

Just ask DirectPointe, the top-ranked company on our 2008 MSPmentor 100 list.

DirectPointe earlier this month inked a partnership with OnForce, indicating that the MSP will contract with service providers within the online market place.

Could this be part of a larger trend? Paul Nadjarian, senior VP of marketing and product at OnForce, certainly thinks so. During a phone chat on Monday, Nadjarian pointed out that face-to-face services remain the lifeblood of the channel.

And while remote managed services provide recurring revenue, MSPs will need partners (peer IT service providers) in order to fulfill service level agreements (SLAs) and deliver on-site support, notes Nadjarian.

Autotask: Singing the Same Tune

Of course, it’s natural for Nadjarian to evangelize on-site support. The OnForce community spans more than 5,000 service buyers and 12,000 technicians — the vast majority of whom visit customer sites or residences to deploy or troubleshoot corporate or consumer IT systems.

But OnForce isn’t the only company promoting the growing link between MSPs and on-site service partners. Autotask, for instance, is enhancing its professional services automation platforms (Autotask Go and Autotask Pro) to support outsourcing management services.

The enhancements will allow Autotask customers to coordinate trouble tickets and service engagements across multiple IT service providers — including OnForce community members. Autotask has yet to formally announce this outsourcing management system, but it’s just around the corner.

Ultimately, OnForce’s momentum with MSPs reinforces a key point: On-site support doesn’t disappear in the managed services world.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Best Practices

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2 comments

  1. Avatar Brian Sherman June 18, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
    Reply

    Joe,

    As I’m sure Paul has discussed, another reason IT service providers are outsourcing is to expand their geographic reach and technology offerings. For example, when an MSP’s customer adds an office on the opposite coast, the provider may want to outsource the implementation for that site. If the MSP has a customer that needs a Point of Sale (POS) implementation, OnForce has many highly-rated providers that can be contracted with to handle that project (or perform some onsite services). That’s a lot easier than trying to hire a new tech resource and keeps the focus on the core services and markets the company serves.

    As you mentioned, Autotask will soon be releasing a new feature that complements OnForce and the IMSN communities, both technology partner organizations of ours. This is a valuable topic for many providers, so keep up the great work!

    Brian

  2. Avatar Joe Panettieri June 18, 2008 @ 3:18 pm
    Reply

    Thanks Brian.

    This trend of MSPs outsourcing to one another (or other IT service providers) will go global. Outside of the US, OnForce is growing fast in Canada, and testing IT service provider marketplaces in Europe.

    I’m not suggesting that OnForce is “the best” or “the only” way for MSPs to outsource work to one another. However, OnForce’s growth provides important clues about how the IT channel is evolving.

    And MSPs are noticing OnForce. Earlier today, I spoke with Michael Proper, CEO of DirectPointe, a top MSP. He mentioned a recent business deal with OnForce, an d describe the company as “the new channel.” I’ll be posting a podcast with Michael/DirectPointe in the next few days (http://www.mspmentor.net/category/podcasts/).

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