Since its inception, the CompTIA Managed Services Community has brought together some of the best and brightest business minds in IT to share best practices and develop industry-shaping initiatives. Over the years, its members have collaborated to deliver a wide-variety of valued content, educational programs and an esteemed business credential — the CompTIA Managed Services Trustmark.
Despite the group’s continued success, they decided to reinvigorate their planning process with some changes last year. Rather than build their 2014 strategy based on previous discussions and their own business experiences, the Managed Services Community Executive Council decided to take a step back. They assembled a fairly comprehensive survey covering virtually every part of an MSP’s operations and asked all their members to participate.
Results of that assessment were quite enlightening to the group’s leadership team and the information they gathered formed the foundation of their two-year strategy. “We created the survey with various categories and buckets related to their managed services business and asked everyone to pick their top choices,” says John Tippett, Chair of the CompTIA Managed Services Community and Vice President and General Manager of Aisle8.
Forging a Deeper Commitment
While tallying the survey results took some time, the group remained focused on its obligations and, in the end, revised its entire agenda for the 2014 Annual Member Meeting. Since both executive and operational management concerns were listed as top priorities by the respondents, the team added key discussions around managed services agreements and pricing models to the schedule. “With our commitment to deliver meaningful information we dove in much deeper than past presentations, sharing real-life pricing models and discussing value-based versus cost-based options in greater detail. It was truly an engaging conversation with not only great turnout and solid interest, but it really energized our group the rest of 2014.”
In addition to the AMM discussions, the Managed Services Community delivered a variety of content in webinars throughout the year, each addressing the specific needs outlined in the survey. Those topics included marketing, effective client onboarding processes, customer loyalty and mergers and acquisitions.
Their commitment to the strategy was on full display at ChannelCon, with comprehensive presentations and discussions on sales, marketing, and the tools managed services providers rely on most. “We drilled deep down into how MSPs use their PSAs and RMMs and the things they were doing that might be differently that we could use to develop best practices. Our executive team produced and shared the key takeaways across the entire community.”
The 2015 Outlook
The Managed Services Community plans to keep the same momentum going at the upcoming CompTIA Annual Member Meeting as members continue to focus on key issues identified in the survey. They’ll host CharTec CEO Alex Rogers for a detailed discussion on sales best practices for managed services providers. “This will be an information-packed, fast moving presentation that gives members an opportunity to share additional best practices and clarify points made by the presenter.”
With their new bottoms up educational approach, the Managed Services Community leaders will continue to review how they deliver information as well as the formats in which they do so. “We want everyone to walk away with tangible resources having learned something beneficial that they can implement in their own business. The Managed Services Community has hundreds of members who provide many different ideas, opinions and perspectives; a highly unique opportunity for anyone looking to engage with other professionals in our field. If you’re a managed services provider or work for a company that supports our part of the IT industry, you absolutely ought to be involved in our community.”
Interested in learning more about the Managed Services Community and its refreshed commitment to collaborative education? Get involved in the discussion at AMM or be sure to add your name to join their next monthly call. Your input will not only be appreciated, but it could actually help drive the future of our managed services industry.
Brian Sherman is principal consultant at Tech Success Communications, an IT channel business development and marketing firm. He served previously as chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
