Choosing the Right IT Management Solution
The ultimate success of your managed services business depends on how efficient you can make your service delivery model. The most efficient MSPs support thousands of client devices per engineer. They do this by continuously and systematically eliminating the sources of unpredictability that would otherwise consume countless hours of analysis and remedial work. Not only is this the most profitable approach, it also maximizes both client satisfaction and professional staff satisfaction. It results in the ability to easily onboard and support new clients, as well as to extend new services to existing clients–all without necessarily increasing the number of technical staff required. When new staff are required, they can quickly be brought up to speed using the common IT management solutions and standard processes that have been developed, allowing rapid scalability to meet every likely circumstance.
When choosing the IT management solutions your team will need to optimize efficiency, it’s best to think about a layered approach.
There are general-purpose solutions that you’ll need to use all the time and specialized products that may be needed only occasionally. The goal should be to minimize the number of specialized products or tools and maximize the scope of the general-purpose solutions. General-purpose products will be used by most of your technical team members, will quickly become familiar, and should be easily scalable as your business grows. Specialized tools may be required only for certain services or in certain circumstances. Examples of general-purpose management solutions include your helpdesk or trouble ticket system, your PSA, and your IT monitoring and management capabilities. The fewer different products required and the closer the coupling between them, the more efficient and effective your organization will become. Organizations that rely on a wide array of different products often have a hard time achieving the highest levels of efficiency because incompatibilities lead to longer event Mean Time to Repairs (MTTRs) and make automation of routine tasks more challenging.
IT Management Security
Another key consideration when selecting your management solutions is security. Managing security risks has become an everyday activity for enterprise IT departments and MSPs alike. Viruses and malware continue to evolve, and enterprising hackers are constantly on the lookout for new vulnerabilities. Just as minimizing the number of management products used helps to optimize efficiency, it also helps to reduce security risks. Making sure that all IT management systems remain compliant with necessary internal and external policies is an important aspect of overall security planning.
Limiting access using multifactor authentication, tracking who has access to which systems, logging activities and ensuring permissions are sought before significant changes are made are important examples of IT management system security benefits. Often IT management systems are overlooked, but they can provide the means to access a wide variety of client systems and devices and often have access through the firewalls that have been set up to keep out hackers and other external intruders.
IT Management Cloud Services
Regardless of the type of management solution MSPs chose to underpin their managed services, the importance of monitoring and proactive management of their customers’ infrastructure elements continues to grow as the market evolves. When the prevailing service model was remote monitoring only, the need for high management system availability and performance was less important, Today’s customers, however, expect more from their service providers.
As is the case with many applications today, users are also expressing an increasing preference to access their IT management software via the cloud. Apart from the obvious benefits of having no server hardware and software to manage and maintain, there are a host of other benefits, including:
• Day One Value: Manage and secure new IT applications and business services on day one.
• Availability Everywhere: Access IT management capabilities from any location by simply signing in. Technicians can leverage laptops and mobile devices to access information while on the road, on client premises or from their home/office, providing better and more immediate client service.
• Trust without the Toil: Know your system is scalable, available, reliable and secure, with the visibility you need, without having to build and maintain it yourself.
• Automatic, No-Stress Upgrades: Upgrades occur automatically, and new releases and features appear, generally without significant impact. This means that new capabilities can be easily tested without having to set up parallel systems. And additional features often lead to new service opportunities that can be rolled out with minimal system disruption.
No solution is a magic bullet, but today’s IT management cloud solutions hold the promise of adding increasingly valuable capabilities without the need to disrupt MSPs’ existing clients.
Ray Wright has been a high-tech industry and marketing exec for over 25 years. His background includes senior marketing roles at Motorola, Cabletron and CA. His product responsibilities have included IT management solutions; security; tethered, wireless and mobile solutions; and software, hardware and services. Ray‘s current focus is on how to make Kaseya’s MSP and mid-sized enterprise customers more successful. He was most recently responsible for Kaseya’s 2014 MSP Pricing Survey and its findings.
