MSPs told to be agile, take ideas to customers

Over two hundred participants heard ex-Gartner analyst and sales evangelist Tiffani Bova outline the processes to re-engage with customers, and how *not* to do it. Her message was an enthusiastic and practical call to address existing customers as a priority in these times, not go chasing too much new business yet. “It is a crisis of prioritization; people are asking ‘what should I be focused on now?’ in the middle of all the things they could be doing. Look at what you are doing – is it going to help you or your customers stabilize, help you get back to work, or help you or your customers grow? You could answer yes to everything - but put on the hard hat and cut what is not needed.”

Also sitting in a hard-hat area was Andy Evers, head of IT at Red Carnation Hotels, whose global business is shut down.  In the current uncertainty, he is having to delay project decisions, so asks partners to be patient in decision over strategies. “Last minute decisions and changes are probably going to be part of our programme, looking at the next year or so.”

He emphasized how important the relationship is with MSPs for him as a customer.  In the same way that his hotel chain tries to anticipate a guest’s need, he expects MSPs to bring ideas to him with experiences from similar customers, challenges he might not be aware of yet and with facilities which can be dialled up and down when needed.

“This kind of dialogue is the piece that is missing – it separates those on the goodies list from the others.”

Among the MSPs who contributed to the session over two days was Jason Fry of PAV IT Services. Delivering IT services in a more agile way is essential, compared with the previously more planned approach is of benefit. “There are advantages in planning and we have always delivered IT projects in that way, but the position is different now. It is difficult to plan for a future now. Anything which means an MSP can working in a more agile way is a big advantage. Perhaps taking a less risk-averse approach to the delivery of projects. What has amazed me is just how quickly some of our customers have been able to implement change since lockdown. So much time in the past was spent trying to work out every eventuality to minimise risk but causing delays. By the time it is deployed, the technology landscape would have changed. in the last few weeks, customers have changed and evolved by learning and experimenting with some of that technology and actually the outcome has not been too bad.”

Presentations on sales messaging, technologies and educating both themselves and customers from leading experts, gave MSPs plenty of ideas to take away from the online event, which is available to download.

Sponsors of the event included Dell Technolgoies, LogMeIn IT Glue, mimecast, SolarWinds, StorageCraft, Tech Data, Trend Micro, WatchGuard, Webroot, Bitdefender, ConnectWise, liongard, e92, Sophos, Comstor, MAP360 and Skout.