The Business Solutions Network

I've been doing a lot of blogging lately on the benefits and challenges of selling managed services. A lot of what I share comes from talking with managed services providers and getting their insights about what works and what doesn't. You can learn from their successes as well as their mistakes. Just in case you missed some of these posts, here's a roundup of the most recent 8:

As I've been talking with networking, storage, and managed services vendors and MSPs about trends they're seeing in the channel and getting feedback on Business Solutions' editorial coverage plans for 2013, I've noticed a common theme emerging to my question: "What are the top challenges MSPs are wrestling with?" Everyone I've spoken with is talking about the hybrid business model that's resulting from break-fix companies trying to make the transition to a recurring revenue business model.

One of the biggest challenges managed services providers face is coming up with the right pricing for their services. We've talked about the pitfalls of underselling your managed services (see "Do You Make This Common MSP Sales Mistake?"), but during my recent conversation with Bob Lawson, product director at GFI Software, he shared some additional mistakes -- 4 to be specific -- that any MSP would be wise to avoid. Here they are: 

In today's video blog, I share the key takeways from my recent interview with Jim Steinlage, president of IT solutions provider and MSP Choice Solutions.

If there's one message Business Solutions makes more than any other, it has to be this: The big winners in the channel are the companies that figure out how to bundle multiple IT hardware and software products, wrap services around these offerings, and sell total solutions. After my interview with Jim Steinlage, president of Choice Solutions, I realized there is a pretty big clarification and caveat we need to make to this claim.

Choice Solutions was a $21 million general practice networking VAR when we first spoke with their president, Jim Steinlage, back in April 2009. The company was projecting 17% growth at a time when the economy was tanking. Three years later I caught up with Jim Steinlage to see how things turned out and was surprised to hear what he had to say.

you're currently selling backup and business continuity solutions, there's a good chance you're offering a disk-based solution that includes a local backup server coupled with a remote backup solution. However, have you considered what you could be missing by not also selling flash-based storage? In a recent article in ComputerWorld, titled, "Flash Storage Can Help Some IT Operations," the author shares the results of a survey of 255 IT professionals, conducted by TheInfoPro, which revealed about 7% were currently using all-flash arrays and another 6% said they were planning to make the move within the next 18 months.

I read an interesting story recently about how an editor at Gizmodo had his digital identity stolen. The hacker gained access to his Twitter account, his Gmail account, and his Apple account. After the security breach, the hacker deleted the victim's Gmail account, posted messages on his Twitter account, and even went so far as to remotely wipe out his MacBook, which contained more than a year and a half of family photos that weren't backed up anywhere else.