4 Challenges Solved Through Automation

Nick Heddy

Building strategic relationships with managed service providers (MSPs) and listening to their business needs should be a guiding force when creating new technologies to enable their business growth. Understanding the power of collaboration between the vendor and the MSP and the value of their insights can open new ways to learn about the critical issues they face, how they are affected and collaborate on impactful solutions.

For example, building a partner advisory committee (PAC) to brainstorm ideas and discuss emerging issues in the industry can be a significant first step. What starts with a few exploratory questions could transition to an engaging conversation. As time goes on, the discussions should transition to specific areas of business. In our experience, we learned that the critical issues and challenges our partners were facing included productivity, security, business analytics and the channel’s transformation. While the areas were varied, we determined that there was one solution for all — automation.

4 Problem Areas

Each area’s pain points revolved around outdated, time-consuming processes containing several human touchpoints. Streamlining the processes would dramatically impact the partners’ business, making them more efficient, productive and secure. Partners are of various sizes, operate in different geographical locations and have vastly different client bases, yet they all shared these same problems. Likely, the issues facing our PAC are the same challenges facing many MSPs in the channel. We will discuss the top four problem areas and explain how automation offers a solution for all.

1. Productivity. Companies could always use more time and money. Unfortunately, both are limited, so using each effectively is imperative to success. This notion is especially true for MSPs who spend a fair amount of time managing clients’ software licenses. Each time a client adds, removes or changes a user, the MSP must go into each license portal and manually make the updates. These updates take away time that could go toward project work or client acquisitions. An MSP with a large client base, each with several employees, and utilizing an expansive solution offering, might see hundreds of license changes a day. Potentially they may need to hire a person or team to manage these updates. The associated time and costs of managing these licenses just increased dramatically.

By automating this process, MSPs can update via one portal, which would cascade updates to all associated licenses, eliminating the need for multiple touches in multiple outlets. The time savings would be enormous, and the changes would be instantaneous for the client. This process would be easily manageable for small and large operations, eliminating the need for a dedicated team. The MSP can reinvest the associated cost savings into the company and allocate headcount to more productive roles.

2. Security. The focus on security has risen in recent years as threats have continued to increase. The new work-from-anywhere landscape presents additional risks as more company data is moving digitally through public Wi-Fi, and teams are collaborating across remote platforms. This new work model has advanced the need for heightened security. Typically, when MSPs think about securing themselves and their clients, they focus on security software and threat-preventative technology. What they often fail to consider is the risk associated with manual, outdated processes. Manual processes with multiple human touchpoints add additional risk to companies through communication breakdown and data loss. The more manual processes a company has, the more open it is to these risks. MSPs should consider automating processes to enhance their security and their clients’ security.

Implementing technology solutions that enable automation reduces touchpoints, limiting the amount of human error. An employee can perform one motion that sets into action a series of events, completing an entire process with minimal effort. Data and documents are transmitted securely through workflows, ensuring only designated employees see and touch the information. MSPs will significantly increase their security posture by implementing automation in their processes. They can do the same for their clients. Established companies are more likely to have outdated processes, exposing them to greater threats. Rectifying outdated practices offer MSPs an excellent opportunity to enhance their client’s security while streamlining operations, which will result in higher productivity.

3. Business analytics. Managing clients’ technology and projects requires most of an MSP’s time. Collecting their company analytics, driving current client growth and prospecting new clients do not usually …