A Door Opener for Managed Services

By Maurice Saluan 1

We all talk about how difficult it is to grow our sales. Is there a magic bullet? What can you use as a door opener so you can promote your managed services? Let’s focus on what small to medium size businesses (SMB) are looking for.

According to top publications and research groups, business owners and managers in the SMB market are most interested in three services: (1) Unified Communications/VOIP; (2) Security; and (3) Data protection/storage. To attract the SMB’s attention, satisfy one if not all of these needs.

Despite the technology advances and vendor marketing, SMBs are adapting to IP telephony slowly. The changeover is gradual as businesses are reluctant to discard previous investments in TDM systems. There is also an element of caution about the quality of service and a lack of experience in using IP networks for both voice and data.

Access Markets International Partners predicts SMB spending on IT security and infrastructure — two areas they consider to be indivisible — is set to spike to $11.4 billion this year. The study determined more than 75 percent of SMBs (1- 999 employees) consider IT security very important. Key areas of interest for SMBs are anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-spyware software and firewalls. All important elements of a managed service program.

An area earmarked to grow even more is disk-based data storage and remote storage. It generated $8 billion in user IT spending in 2006 and is poised to generate more than $60 billion in software and hardware purchases through 2012, according to a multi-client IDC study.

With that in mind how do you get CEO, Controllers or IT Directors to notice you? Show them how they can affordably have data and email frequently backed up and always accessible–no matter what the situation. Data access and availability are the keys.

Zenith Infotech channel partners lead with a quicker, smarter and more economical disaster recovery solution designed for SMBs. The cost-effective solution allows them to make 300% margins while providing a standby server on site. Recovery time in the event of server downtime is as fast and simple as powering on a virtual machine. Also the key component of disaster recovery-off site storage is provided effortlessly and affordably as part of this service. After business managers engage with the Partner for the managed backup and disaster recovery solution a relationship is formed whereby full scale managed services are the next steps.

Note: Maurice Saluan is VP-Channel Management for Zenith Infotech as well as seasoned sales veteran in the managed service arena. Guest blog entries such as this one are contributed on a monthly basis as part of MSPmentor.net’s Platinum sponsorship.