https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

From the Industry


How to Win the MSP Service Delivery Trifecta: Efficient, Effective and Consistent

  • Written by Kaseya Guest Blog 1
  • September 14, 2015
What’s the first adjective that comes to mind to describe excellence in MSP services delivery? If you’re a client, the word could be "effective. If you’re the IT technician, the word might be "consistent." As an MSP owner, you might say "efficient."

Quick! What’s the first adjective that comes to mind to describe excellence in MSP services delivery? 

If you’re a client, the word could be “effective.” Effective service delivery means that you are getting your desired result. If your MSP delivers services effectively, you’re a happy camper.

If you’re the IT technician, the word might be “consistent.” Consistency measures the regularity of the use of resources to reach a stated end. So, processes that are consistent (and predictable) make life sweeter when you’re the one driving the IT dashboard.

As an MSP owner, you might say “efficient.” Since efficiency indicates how well you use resources, more efficient services delivery usually means more profit at the end of the day.

Of course, since you’re not a one-dimensional cardboard character, you know you need all three for real, sustainable success as an MSP. How do you win the trifecta of effective, efficient and consistent service delivery?

Philosophy

To quote the great philosopher Yoda: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

In all seriousness, you have to have a plan and a process to keep you on track. The plan doesn’t need to take weeks or months to put into place. It can be a simple spreadsheet or a single sheet of paper where you:

  • Identify the most important elements of service delivery that need to be done well. (See my suggestions in the Best Practices section below). 
  • Grade your performance for each element with a simple 0-3 rating system, reflecting whether each element is being delivered effectively, efficiently and/or consistently. Be honest.
  • Prioritize these elements and list the skills, processes and technology you need in order to score 3 out of 3 for each one. Luckily, the elements are usually very interdependent–so an improvement in one element often improves others, as well.

Carve out time on the calendar, as appropriate, to get these action items done. Do them. Or don’t do them. There is no try.

Set up a regular review cycle to measure your progress and adjust as needed. (Rinse and repeat.)

Best Practices

At times, every interaction with a client seems like a critical interaction.  But in reality, there are elements of service delivery that are foundational – get these right and you’ve almost won the trifecta already.

Here are my suggestions for elements of service delivery that are essential:

1. Policies: Stop managing machines and start managing policies and machine groups. Successful MSPs create, update and apply policies to groups of machines, managing exceptions while keeping systems in compliance of predetermined conditions.

Aggregate your management tasks and think how you can apply changes by machine group (for example, Exchange servers) across your entire customer base. Focusing on exceptions rather than each machine streamlines IT systems management, eliminating the repetition typically associated with one-machine-at-a-time maintenance while ensuring consistent IT service across environments

2. Patching: Good patching practices are essential to the health, performance and security of any IT infrastructure you manage. Patches need to be updated completely, routinely and in a timely fashion.  Leverage technology to make patch updates as automatic as possible. 

Again, as with policies, reduce the number of patch policies to those that work for most of your clients’ needs. Then create additional policies to handle the exceptions as needed.   

3. Standardization: As I mentioned at the top of the article, consistent and predictable processes are a soothing balm to the IT soul. But consistency is best achieved if the IT environments you manage have been standardized–including hardware, servers, desktop, edge devices, OSes, versioning, etc. Every deviation in this infrastructure map creates the need for workarounds, policy exceptions, asynchronized patch and update scheduling, etc. 

By standardizing on the systems you manage, you simplify your workload and create time and space to enable your team, your clients and your business to grow in effectiveness and efficiency. 

Not all clients are willing or able to standardize their infrastructure on your time table. You can handle this in several ways:

  • Charge a premium for managing non-standard systems to fund the extra policies and time required to manage them.
  • Create a mutually agreeable migration plan that will, over time, standardize the client’s infrastructures.  Of course, you can also charge a premium for non-standard servers, etc., during the transition period.
  • Walk away from the business.

Technology

Your technology is the heartbeat of your IT services delivery. The technologies you adopt must support your goal to deliver consistent, efficient and effective IT services. It’s critical that the technology supports your policies, such as who gets access to which networks, computers, capabilities; how often passwords are changed; reporting requirements; etc. 

And these policies should trigger automated routines and alerts to enable more efficient and effective monitoring and management. Servers that are out of compliance can be automatically detected so your techs can remediate. If backups don’t perform successfully, the system can alert your techs–or even reboot the server automatically. You get the picture.

Recent Enterprise Management Associates’ research indicates that automation can reduce the time to manage patch and software upgrades by 50% on average. This data supports Kaseya’s research with our client base. Kaseya customers see a steep increase in IT technician efficiencies, with 60% reporting at least doubling, with many quadrupling, the devices-per-tech ratio. In addition, almost half reduce IT management cost by 25% or more. Finally, they report increased end-user satisfaction, with 80% reporting 4+ levels of end-user satisfaction (on a 1-5 scale).

To learn the pros and cons of technology options out there–from point solutions to freeware to integrated systems–download the MSP Guide to Growth: Efficiency, Tools and Best Practices.

Efficient. Effective. Consistent. 

You can get along with one or two of these characteristics for a while. But to have a thriving MSP for the long term, you need all three, all the time. 

So do. And win the trifecta.

Joining Kaseya in 2012, Miguel Lopez brings over 20 years of experience to his role as Senior Technical Director. In this position, he consults daily with Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to help them solve their clients’ business problems with technology solutions. Prior to joining Kaseya, Miguel served as the director of consulting services for All Covered, a nationwide technology services company that is a division of Konica Minolta Business Solutions USA Inc. In 2008, All Covered acquired NetCor Technologies, a leading MSP that Miguel founded and managed since 1997. NetCor specialized in serving highly regulated industries such as healthcare, CPAs, law firms and retail companies.

Tags: Agents Cloud Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs From the Industry

Most Recent


  • how to take shared responsibility for securing cloud
    How to Take Shared Responsibility for Securing Cloud
    While shared responsibility is a common term, surprisingly few people understand the model — and fewer still have implemented it correctly.
  • seize the application modernization opportunity
    Seize the Application Modernization Opportunity
    Application modernization relies on four critical technology solutions and capabilities.
  • a growth mindset: your organization's strategic differentiator
    A Growth Mindset: Your Organization's Strategic Differentiator
    Here are three actionable steps to foster a growth mindset across your organization.
  • Timely Tips for Non-Negotiable Patch Updates
    Timely Tips for Non-Negotiable Patch Updates
    An RMM with automated patch management can help MSPs accelerate deployment while freeing staff up to focus on other mission-critical tasks.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • 5G
    5G: Revolution or Evolution?
  • M&A
    Why All MSPs Need to Understand the M&A Landscape
  • hurricane season
    4 Things MSPs Should Consider When Prepping for Hurricane Season
  • zero-trust
    The Benefits of Zero-Trust Security over VPNs

Upcoming Events

View all

MSP Summit

September 13, 2022 - September 16, 2022

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

May 1, 2023 - May 4, 2023

Galleries

View all

7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Verizon, Brightspeed, Okta, Nutanix, More

August 19, 2022

The Gately Report: SonicWall Partners to Play Big Role in Company’s Next Chapter

August 19, 2022

As Artificial Intelligence Advances, Is Human Error Holding Up the Contact Center?

August 19, 2022

Industry Perspectives

View all

How to Take Shared Responsibility for Securing Cloud

August 11, 2022

Seize the Application Modernization Opportunity

August 2, 2022

A Growth Mindset: Your Organization’s Strategic Differentiator

August 1, 2022

Webinars

View all

Outsmarting RaaS: Implementation Strategies To Help Your Clients Before, During, and After a Ransomware Attack

August 23, 2022

Why it is Important to Upgrade Aging Servers and How to use Live Optics to Upgrade Efficiently

August 25, 2022

Executives at Home are Not Alright: An Intro to Digital Executive Protection

September 8, 2022

White Papers

View all

Work Goes Remote – (and Other Top ITOps Trends)

May 25, 2022

The New Bottom Line: How MSPs Can Meet the Healthcare Crisis While Evolving Their Businesses

April 19, 2022

How to build a Security Operations Center (on a budget)

April 4, 2022

Channel Futures TV

View all

ThreatLocker Preaches Zero Trust, Addresses Industry Competition

Cisco Taking Partners of All Types to ‘New Heights’

August 19, 2022

Kaseya-Datto: Channel Exec Talks MSP Benefits from Acquisition

August 19, 2022

RingCentral Partner Revenue Growth Hits Highs in 2022

August 19, 2022

Twitter

ChannelFutures

.@RingCentral's Wendy Harmon explains why partners have reason to celebrate this year. @MSP_Summit… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 19, 2022
ChannelFutures

Channel development manager Jason Pryce of @datto on @KaseyaCorp's acquisition, security push and more. @MSP_Summit… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 19, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@FrontierCorp workers on #strike in California for subcontracting. @CWAUnion dlvr.it/SWwXhh https://t.co/c8QQZyBaq5

August 19, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@MichelleRagusa of @CiscoPartners gets us ready for @MSP_Summit by talking #SMB, security and more. #MSPSummit… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 19, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@IGIcyber sidles up to @meetgradient to bring ease of use and added value to MSPs. dlvr.it/SWwRSG https://t.co/vLFDPfAyQ1

August 19, 2022
ChannelFutures

Now Available: Expo Pass to Channel Partners Leadership Summit & #MSPSummit this September 13-16! Take a look at th… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 19, 2022
ChannelFutures

How do you stay on top of your game? 💪 By connecting & sharing knowledge with other elite partners, ready to stay r… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 19, 2022
ChannelFutures

How do you stay on top of your game? 💪 By connecting & sharing knowledge with other elite partners, ready to stay r… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 19, 2022

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X