MSP automation: Five reasons it matters for today’s MSPs

Managed service providers (MSPs) have reached a major inflection point. The effects of cloud, mobile computing, IT anywhere and commoditisation have had a huge impact and it doesn’t look like these technologies will slow down or stop developing any time soon.

To make the most of this environment, and at the same time future proof MSP profits, automation must be considered. Automation unlocks the key to a successful managed services business and advances your customers’ technology roadmap.

Whether an MSP is large or small, it’s clear MSP’s must automate their IT, and do it as quickly as possible. With that in mind, here are five reasons why automation is essential for today’s and tomorrow’s MSPs:
1. Gains Efficiency: Automation’s main objective is to reduce operational costs and increase staff efficiencies, particularly in the delivery of IT services. An MSP has to run as efficiently as possible to stay ahead in the managed services business and automation is the fastest and easiest way to achieve that. This means MSPs no longer have to spend long hours on routine tasks. From onboarding new customers, to patch management and more, much can be accomplished today with automation.
2. Combats Commoditisation: The IT industry is the worst offender when it comes to commoditisation. Managed services, in particular, is a market driven by the influx of aggressive new companies that are productising their services. These new competitors have stopped selling on value and have started selling on price. How are you going to justify a fixed fee, managed desktop service at £60 when a larger and more aggressive competitor offers to provide the same service for £50 per desktop?
To stay competitive and free up staff to demonstrate and differentiate true business value, operational efficiency has to move to new levels, and that means greater IT automation.
3. Maintains Profitability: In an ultra-competitive marketplace that’s rapidly being productised by bigger and better-resourced competitors, automation guarantees the efficiencies you need to maintain your profitability. The only way to compete when customers demand lower prices is to deliver services more quickly, efficiently and profitably.
There are other significant automation benefits such as scalability, so as an MSP’s business may grow – the headcount stays. Automation drives up the productivity and efficiency of technicians and help desk employees; which drives up revenue per employee. It also helps keep more advanced technicians and experts focused on higher value projects and services.
4. Demonstrates Value: Automation is the key to profitability, allowing MSPs to effectively address the needs of SMB customers, even if they’re operating reactively in a break-fix, chaotic IT services environment. More importantly, it can be the key to demonstrating value and to transitioning break-fix customers into proactive, fixed fee contracts. It’s a commodity fighting, “fixed-fee at a lower price” value proposition.
In addition, not only does automation extend to management of the cloud, but it also helps MSPs deal with the complexities of cloud. Even though customers are being told that migrating to cloud-based solutions is easy, the reality is that it’s not. Interfacing with the cloud requires complex technologies such as PowerShell, Citrix, VMware and Hyper-V. What MSPs need is a strategy for effectively managing these complex cloud interfaces – while also delivering the convenience and accessibility of the cloud. Again, automation can help.
A remote monitoring and management (RMM) solution that provides pre-automated policies based on IT best practices is the ultimate answer for dealing efficiently with complex cloud technologies. With the right RMM platform, policies should perform tasks seamlessly in the background. You don’t need to know PowerShell or VMware or how to write complicated and expensive custom scripts. All you need to know is the workflow for your customers – then select a policy and let it run.
5. Takes Command of the Cloud: Often your customer will have more points of failure that need to be monitored and managed in the cloud. This adds complexity and drives demand for a trusted MSP.
At the top of the stack you have Office 365, which needs to be managed or administered: adding, deleting, changing users. This is complex and most end users won’t do it on their own. You also have all the points of failure that sit below this: the Internet, the firewall, the router and the desktop.

All of that complexity still needs to be managed, but instead of delivering the capability of interfacing with the cloud – you’re delivering the management capability of the cloud, made possible in large part by automation. And with that management comes a much bigger opportunity to leverage the relationship you have with customers and become a trusted advisor.

What You Can Do Now
How can you ramp up your automation capabilities to get ahead of the game? New RMM tools and technologies – purpose-built for MSPs – offer IT service providers the ability to automate over 95 per cent of standard IT tasks. And these new offerings are simple to use, with completely codeless and customisable features that allow MSPs to meet varying business needs. They also offer hundreds of pre-built automation objects and policies based on IT best practices, enabling MSPs to leapfrog technical challenges with ease and extend and scale their managed services to the cloud and to mobile users quickly and efficiently – all through automation.
The bottom line is that change is here and the market’s moving fast, but there’s no need to sit on the sidelines. Get on board with automation now, and get ahead of the game.