If I Were Launching an MSP Now: C3 Integrated Solutions’ Bill Wootton

Bill Wootton is the founder and president of cloud solutions company C3 Integrated Solutions. The company, based in Arlington, Virginia, provides Microsoft cloud solutions including Office 365, EM+S, and Azure.

Bill has been around the tech block a time or two, and he sat down with us this week to share the great insights one gets having been around said block. And to wax poetic about the Eagles winning their first Super Bowl back in February. But mostly the insights part.

1. Create and build understanding.

From a partner/provider side of things, you have to build and cultivate awareness and know-how with your customers. You can’t just hand them the technology and walk off into the sunset (dramatically, probably).

Bill Wootton

Bill Wootton

You have to realize that it’s more than just providing your customers with the technology. You have to help them understand how it applies to and impacts their business processes, and how it will make them more effective and productive.

That’s a big key with our clients, and should be with any customer out there. These tools change the way they work every day — it’s much more than just “flipping some licenses.”

2. Focus on security.

This is an easy one, or so you’d think. You need to make sure that the client can balance all of these new tools, powers and capabilities with the ability to secure their information and protect themselves from all the threats that are out there. And there are a lot … of threats … out there. And they are scarier and more advanced than they used to be.

Every customer has endpoints that need – nay – require protection. Your solution must provide a deep and comprehensive set of security features. Taking a look at today’s threat landscape; this should be a no-brainer.

3. Be able to adapt and adjust.

From a business-model standpoint, you have to adapt and adjust to the fact that the on-premises footprint is getting smaller.

Everything nowadays is “all cloud all the time.” Seriously, everything. The forecast is cloudy with a chance of cloud.

Providers need to realize that their clients are going to have less and less of a need to have anything on-prem. Because of this, they will need to spend less and less time on-prem, which means less of an opportunity to interact with their customers. So they need to adjust and build their model around that — a cloud-centric approach. Being able to help manage those cloud environments is key.

Bill Wootton is the founder and president of C3 Integrated Solutions, an full-service managed services provider based in Arlington, Virginia. Through cloud deployments with Office365, Azure and EM+S, C3 Integrated Solutions has built its model around both the technical and business process implications of virtualization.