If you're exploring managed services as a business model and wondering whether it can put you on a fast track to sustained success, look no further than Michael Drake and his high-growth company masterIT.
Picture yourself building an IT services business mostly from the start. That was the scenario Drake faced in early 2006, right after he set up masterIT in Memphis, TN. An 18-year IT veteran, Drake knew the finance and operational issues of offering break/fix or perhaps reactive services and had resolved to have a look for a more lucrative business model that would produce rapid results and lasting success.
Drake and business partner Gary Wiseman wanted masterIT to generate substantially higher margins and experience a competitive differentiation by offering a comprehensive set of IT services delivered at a consistently world-class level.
they actually did their homework and came away persuaded that managed services was the way to go.
Drake and Wiseman, the company's President and CTO, did their homework there too, choosing speed System on the power of its N-central remote monitoring and management platform and the business and technical support that N-able provides thru its speed plan for Success. 'N-able's solution stood out in a number of ways, but the most important one is their business transformation services. They treated the 1st 2 months as a coaching bootcamp where we learned MSP go-to-market secrets and best practices for setting up a NOC ( network operations center ),' Drake says. 'The capability to make business value messaging, marketing collateral and internet site content and to set up the product itself - all using N-able personnel and support - significantly reduced our time to market by at least 6 months.' Drake was also sold on Velocity System's capability to reduce service delivery costs by enabling masterIT to support more seats with less technicians, to automate important jobs like patch management and to streamline workflows. To date, 800 customer seats have been added to masterIT's N-central dashboard and another 600 are in the backlog to be delivered by the end of the year.
'Our two main messages to prospects are that we will measurably lower the overall cost of ownership ( TCO ) of their infrastructure and that we will give them problem-free IT so they can focus on their core business. They come away with reassurance from knowing they have enterprise-strength technology and IT experts working for them - and the budget predictability that comes from one set monthly fee.' One prospect that liked what it heard was the Memphis office of commercial real estate giant CB Richard Ellis. As a part of its engagement methodology, masterIT conducted a network assessment and produced a TCO report for the office, which employs more than 65 people. The TCO report showed how much the office spends on IT every month and proposed changes to scale back costs and stabilise spending. The suggestion included hardware-as-a-service - in which masterIT acquires, installs and services all hardware and software for the customer - as well as remote monitoring and management.
In particular, consolidation of technology and services employed by the office's field sales team led to direct savings and nearly eliminated downtime and lost productiveness.
Supplementary reading:
SMB Network System Management Case Study
Picture yourself building an IT services business mostly from the start. That was the scenario Drake faced in early 2006, right after he set up masterIT in Memphis, TN. An 18-year IT veteran, Drake knew the finance and operational issues of offering break/fix or perhaps reactive services and had resolved to have a look for a more lucrative business model that would produce rapid results and lasting success.
Drake and business partner Gary Wiseman wanted masterIT to generate substantially higher margins and experience a competitive differentiation by offering a comprehensive set of IT services delivered at a consistently world-class level.
they actually did their homework and came away persuaded that managed services was the way to go.
Drake and Wiseman, the company's President and CTO, did their homework there too, choosing speed System on the power of its N-central remote monitoring and management platform and the business and technical support that N-able provides thru its speed plan for Success. 'N-able's solution stood out in a number of ways, but the most important one is their business transformation services. They treated the 1st 2 months as a coaching bootcamp where we learned MSP go-to-market secrets and best practices for setting up a NOC ( network operations center ),' Drake says. 'The capability to make business value messaging, marketing collateral and internet site content and to set up the product itself - all using N-able personnel and support - significantly reduced our time to market by at least 6 months.' Drake was also sold on Velocity System's capability to reduce service delivery costs by enabling masterIT to support more seats with less technicians, to automate important jobs like patch management and to streamline workflows. To date, 800 customer seats have been added to masterIT's N-central dashboard and another 600 are in the backlog to be delivered by the end of the year.
'Our two main messages to prospects are that we will measurably lower the overall cost of ownership ( TCO ) of their infrastructure and that we will give them problem-free IT so they can focus on their core business. They come away with reassurance from knowing they have enterprise-strength technology and IT experts working for them - and the budget predictability that comes from one set monthly fee.' One prospect that liked what it heard was the Memphis office of commercial real estate giant CB Richard Ellis. As a part of its engagement methodology, masterIT conducted a network assessment and produced a TCO report for the office, which employs more than 65 people. The TCO report showed how much the office spends on IT every month and proposed changes to scale back costs and stabilise spending. The suggestion included hardware-as-a-service - in which masterIT acquires, installs and services all hardware and software for the customer - as well as remote monitoring and management.
In particular, consolidation of technology and services employed by the office's field sales team led to direct savings and nearly eliminated downtime and lost productiveness.
Supplementary reading:
SMB Network System Management Case Study
