In baseball, they call it a complete game. Coaches design what they believe to be a great plan and the players execute each play as close to perfection as their skills and experience allow. It’s an extremely rare event that involves a little luck as well, but in effect it’s the ideal each team strive for every time the players take the field.
An equivalent in the IT channel is the complete solutions play. That’s where a provider owns and supports the entire technology platform for their customer, a soup-to-nuts offering that addresses every one of their computer, network, application and related support needs. In the SMB, it’s also a great way to protect your accounts, even when using partners to deliver part of the offerings or support. When customers depend on you to manage it all, to be the architect and general contractor for what is essentially their business infrastructure, the value of your organization increases exponentially.
The flip side of the coin is it’s far easier to grow revenue with existing clients than to attract new ones. In fact, MSPs report that more than 65% of their sales come from their current customers, according to CompTIA’s 5th Annual Trends in Managed Services Report. That statistic just reaffirms the long-standing rule that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. In the managed services space, that means you’ve established trust and are building relationships that give you more insight into your customers’ strategic (as well as tactical) business plans. When given that “big picture” view, IT service providers can become true consultants. They can offer advice to address a range of organizational issues and opportunities, from workflow and process improvement to meeting regulatory compliance requirements.
Typically, the more trust you earn, the more opportunities will come your way. Successful IT service providers take that responsibility seriously. Over time, some are given additional authority and asked to take on more tasks such as to architect their clients’ IT infrastructure or to vet their data protection and compliance measures. The end goal is to become respected advisers who are always seen as having the company’s best interests in mind, no matter what they do.
Build Out with Purpose
The key is not to think of wallet share as a bad thing. Those who suggest new solutions simply to pad their own bottom line won’t last long in the IT services space. But if your team is conscientiously exploring innovative ideas for boosting your client’s revenue, profitability, customer service levels or any other capabilities, portfolio expansion is a win-win opportunity.
That’s why savvy solution providers use their peripheral vision. The term, in this case, isn’t referring to monitors, but to all the technologies outside the core infrastructure (servers, computing devices and network components). These solutions may be beneficial to a customer’s operations or allow them to meet other business objectives, and the list of potential peripheral offerings can be quite extensive. A few of the more common channel options include:
- Digital Signage: look around the airport, grocery store and next hotel you stay at. You may have looked right at the latest display solutions and never connected them to a business opportunity for a managed services provider. In fact, many businesses use digital signage systems in their waiting rooms, above the sales floor or outside their buildings. Is it a viable opportunity for your IT services firm? Check out the CompTIA Quick Start Guide to Digital Signage to find out.
- Physical Security: in a similarly stealthy role, access control and video surveillance solutions continue to grow in demand. Many businesses are implementing these systems to ensure the personal safety for their employees and to lock down their data centers and other critical parts of their infrastructure. Check out this background guide that CompTIA members created to help IT services providers determine the viability of and requirements for building a physical security practice.
- Point of Sale: this is an often underserved and undervalued option for IT service providers. In addition to grocers, there are a host of businesses that rely on transactional solutions, including restaurants, hotels and a host of other retailers. The opportunity goes beyond installing cash registers and credit card readers: today’s POS applications can involve recurring revenue options such as payment card processing and remote monitoring and management options. And don’t forget security and PCI (payment card industry) compliance support. Those value-added services are in big demand today.
- Business applications: from customer relationship management and accounting software to ERP enterprise resource planning and computer-aided design solutions, the options are endless. While it’s always best to partner with peer experts for one-off sales and support needs, vertically-specialized IT services firms may benefit from building practices around the applications their customers need (and are willing to pay a premium for).
The definition of peripheral solutions can vary significantly between IT services firms, but if a portfolio addition solves a valuable need for customers and adds revenue to the bottom line, it will be worthy of consideration. Is your team actively looking for these types of opportunities during client visits? If not, be sure to get them thinking with a competitive contest or as part of a more formal or structured review.
Brian Sherman is Chief Content Officer at GetChanneled, a 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@getchanneled.com
