Strategic Technology Consulting

Written by Allison Francis
December 21, 2021

“For the successful managed service provider, it is time to milk the cow. The trend toward outsourcing is the strongest it’s ever been, not just in our industry, but so many in business services. Payroll might’ve paved the way, but it’s now at the CFO and HR level as well, so the small business person is seeing the value of focusing on what they do well and outsourcing the rest. IT is definitely part of that trend and obviously growing stronger with cyber incidents hitting closer and closer to home. But this also means that the MSP has to shore up its own ship well beyond even what the clients need, and fast.

“For it to do anything else next year other than get stronger for the MSP who is making money and scaling would be very surprising. For the smaller, unprofitable MSP, because of the cyber challenges, it is going to get worse.

“Challenges:

Cybersecurity – figuring out the best and keeping the expectations of what the IT department is doing nominal if the client isn’t raising their cyber security profile.

“Opportunities:

Higher level strategic technology consulting. It is very hard for most MSPs to actually get there. If they are still stuck closing tickets as their main purpose in life, then it’s going to be hard to get to the point of a full dedicated process, people and time to prevent problems, so that there can be a business unit focused on consulting.
Cybersecurity is also an opportunity. Lots of unknowns and fears in this area. If you can drive value here, it could be promising for sure.

— Lauren Groff, CEO, Groff Networks

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Allison Francis

Allison Francis is a writer, public relations and marketing communications professional with experience working with clients in industries such as business technology, telecommunications, health care, education, the trade show and meetings industry, travel/tourism, hospitality, consumer packaged goods and food/beverage. She specializes in working with B2B technology companies involved in hyperconverged infrastructure, managed IT services, business process outsourcing, cloud management and customer experience technologies. Allison holds a bachelor's degree in public relations and marketing from Drake University. An Iowa native, she resides in Denver, Colorado.