Why Your Customers Need Hybrid Storage

By Jay McCall, Business Solutions magazine

This MSP (managed services provider) earned a $25,000 sale by presenting a complete disaster recovery (DR) offering.

PCNet has 25 years’ experience as a VAR, selling and repairing servers, switches, routers, and workstations. Within the past five years, the company saw its profit margins eroding, and about a year and a half ago it entered the managed services space. Last year, managed services accounted for only 15% of PCNet’s total revenue. But, this year the company is projecting that percentage to double, and by 2015 it expects half of its revenue to come from selling managed services.

One recent customer win that highlights PCNet’s decision to transition its business to a recurring revenue model is a 150-employee construction firm that found the VAR-turned-MSP via a Web search. “Half of this company’s employees regularly work in the field and had to drive to the company’s headquarters if they needed to access the ERP (enterprise resource planning) system, email, and other business applications,” says Brian Doyle, VP of IT and data center services at PCNet.