Don't Use A PSA? Here's Why You Should

By The Business Solutions Network

Last week I attended Autotask Community Live! 2013. This event is Autotask’s annual conference where its users come to learn about the vendor’s latest enhancements, get educated, and network with one another.
One of the aspects of this event that was refreshing was how vibrant, engaged, and energized the Autotask community of users is. The room was packed with 600+ IT providers who spent their own time and money to attend this three-day event. As I spoke with attendees, they all had great things to say about Autotask, particularly how the PSA software has helped their companies do more; whether increasing productivity or increasing billable time. The end result was a room of huge Autotask fans who repeatedly cheered throughout the first morning’s keynote announcements.

It was during the opening keynote that Mark Cattini, CEO of Autotask, spoke about his company’s goal to enable “smart IT,” which is a three-pronged approach to helping solutions providers achieve business outcomes:

• Efficiency — productivity and automation to remove noise that interferes and hinders IT providers in their day-to-day operations.
• Accountability — measurement and reporting to add visibility to all aspects of an IT provider’s business.
• Intelligence — insight from data to help IT providers improve.

This concept of smart IT could be seen in Autotask’s upcoming performance dashboard. This analytical tool turns an IT provider’s data in BIG data. That is, you’ll be able to dynamically slice and dice your data every which way to measure a variety of variables in your business. Which employees have the fastest time to resolve? Which customers are eating into your profits? Using a series of drop-down boxes, you can gain views of your company you might have never imagined.

This is what a PSA tool is all about. If you’re an IT provider who’s on the fence about automation tools like Autotask, do a little research, seek out some demos, and your decision will be made. The fact is, PSA tools are worth their price when you consider all the ways (tangible and intangible) that they positively affect your business.

For you fence sitters, you’re in luck. In our July issue dropping in a few weeks, we’ll be featuring a review of the top three PSA platforms out there. Don’t miss it.