MSPs Increasingly Must Educate Their Clients’ Finance Teams

By ProfitBricks Guest Blog

Being a trusted technology adviser in a time of great change is hard. New technologies pull at you. Vendors push at you. Clients may inquire about the technologies as they read about them in the increasingly technology-focused press. But, generally speaking, clients do not understand them and depend on you, the MSP to be their trusted adviser. Of course, in the end, it’s the clients that must pay for these new technologies.

It used to be easy. With every new application, or location, or employee, etc., new IT infrastructure was procured and invoiced to your client who would pay. And, if it could be capitalized, you would sit with the finance team and work out a three- to five-year depreciation schedule. But these schedules, bound by GAAP, state that any fixed asset that has a lifespan greater than one year gets depreciated during its useful life. With today’s compressed technology cycles, new technology use cases (big data, process automation, systems integrations) and constant vendor diversification, those timeframes are collapsing from three to five years to 18 to 24 months! And with the advent of cloud computing, we’re moving to not just an OPEX-driven on-demand payment model, but a rationalization of IT and its value in an organization.

One of the most visible and valuable reminders of IT–at any business–is the server closet, server room or data center. With its special location, ventilation, electric power management and security controls, it is often seen as the heart of the business.  But that data center is starting to be the elephant in the room.

What is the true cost and value that the management of a server closet/room/data center?

The racks, the cabling, the cooling, the power management devices, the servers, the network devices, the insurance–in the age of cloud computing and hyperscale data centers, these rooms just seem like a relic of the past.

Increasingly, your customers are becoming more aware of this.

Now is the time to start exploring not just your path to the cloud, but your customers’ path. The CAPEX to OPEX transition is now an accepted business practice, and the true cost of delivering IT with an on-premise data center is also in the spotlight.  You can download our newest white paper, “How to Understand the True Cost of Running IT Infrastructure,” and learn how to start talking to your client about the transition and how you can lead them into the future with cloud infrastructure. You’ll be helping the business achieve its goals and more rapidly deploy new technologies, and help the finance team modernize their books and relationships with bankers and insurance agents.

Guest blogs such as this one are published monthly and are part of MSPmentor’s annual platinum sponsorship.