I posed a question to solution providers in the audience at three recent channel conferences: How many of you ensure that everyone on your field team has mobile access to your PSA? In two out of three cases, less than half raised their hands. The final group was worse, with perhaps one-fourth indicating they did.
In some cases, the solution providers simply didn’t have a PSA in place. That may seem strange in 2015, after more than a decade of managed and cloud services innovations and growth … but not everyone feels the need to automate their key business processes and service tickets. Despite these systems’ long track record of helping MSPs improve their efficiencies and profitability, some simply haven’t made the leap. Adoption of the tools and their mobile applications has basically become an industry best practice and was even incorporated into the controls for CompTIA’s Managed Services Trustmark.
The main reason many of those I’ve talked with haven’t implemented remote access to their PSA is execution. Most recognize the value and willingly acknowledge the value of the mobile applications, but simply haven’t pulled the trigger on widespread adoption in their own businesses.
More companies have been leveraging these solutions to do more with fewer resources, with channel organizations often leading the charge. Yet, at least according to some very rudimentary personal surveys, it seems like a significant number of providers aren’t “eating their own dog food.” The best opportunity for solution providers to work out any bugs and showcase their services is to implement them in their own day to day practices. That’s just one reason why your field sales and tech teams need access to a variety of mobile tools in the field — especially when working closely with customers and prospects.
Why Mobility Matters
With the help of smartphones and other mobile web-accessible devices, your employees can operate in much the same manner from home or at a work site as they can in the office. For the management team, mobility solutions provide access to critical business data, allowing them to make informed decisions no matter where they are and what time of the day it is. That’s real value for your business. If your team is demonstrating and emphasizing those points with your customers, new sales and support opportunities are more likely to come their way.
Of course, that means they have to truly adopt the technology and make it part of their daily routines. A variety of purpose-built mobility applications are available to providers today that make life a lot easier for your employees and give you access to more real-time information, including:
Professional Services Automation (PSA) Platforms These applications allow solution providers to receive alerts, access account information, update service tickets and manage their services business (from virtually any web-enabled device).
Vendor and Distributor Partner Applications a fast and effective way to check the latest promotions, register deals and manage critical business relationships.
Remote Monitoring and Management Tools receive and manage tickets and alerts, remediate issues and escalate issues with team members using these solutions.
Email Management Systems Use these to track system performance and client issues using dashboards and other management programs.
Online Backup and Disaster Recovery Dashboards These receive process updates and alerts, monitor usage and other critical client information.
Unified Communications Control Panels Check network performance and resolve issues remotely.
That’s just a sampling of the mobility solutions available for solution providers to use themselves. With a continually flow of specially designed smartphone and tablet platforms and new applications hitting the channel each week, there’s a plethora of business-improving options for VARs and MSPs to choose from.
I plan to keep asking the same mobility question at channel events over the next few years and hopefully the internal adoption rate will begin to climb. The benefits are simply too big to pass up.
Brian Sherman is founder of Tech Success Communications, specializing in editorial content and consulting for the IT channel. His previous roles include chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
