5 Strategies to be a Great Managed Service Provider (MSP)

Managed Services Provider (MSP) goes one step beyond a traditional IT player - not only by helping their customers with solutions that help them to run their business, but also by becoming their trusted technology advisor. Recent market studies show that, IT managed services can reduce in-house IT costs by 40% while simultaneously facilitating a 50% increase in IT efficiencies. It helps customers to focus on their core business, while the MSP focuses on their IT needs.

IT Services providers have a bottom line to maintain and myriad staff to support, while providing their customers with the best possible service. This can be challenging if an IT Service provider is working on siloed projects and underlying IT support. Especially, at times when growth is unpredictable, IT players must transition from a reactive approach to services rendered with a proactive one. This is where managed services come into play. This transition can help to generate reliable revenue in a shifting market.

As global organisations usher in a new era in IT service delivery, it’s important to note that customer needs are changing with time. Digital disruption is the talk now and organizations want to move their business to the cloud with their strategically designed digital transformation imperatives. As an ITSM player, it’s important to stay on top of industry trends to ensure that they are meeting customer expectations.

A great MSP will possess strong experience and expertise in terms of understanding the way industries function as well as the current landscape of applications and technology. This helps the MSP to design a customized strategy for application and technology modernization for customers across industries.

Following are some strategies for the MSPs to follow -

Govern - A robust governance from both parties (the incumbent vendor and the new partner) is required to ensure seamless transition and execution. This helps both parties to drive collaborative interactions and provides feedback mechanisms to encourage communication and desirable behaviors to establish an organization model. 

Reduce Costs - Reduction in workforce-related costs such as recruitment, induction, and training helps the bank to reduce overheads. Sharing IT responsibilities with the MSP helps the bank to focus more on core business activities. By establishing personnel structure, MSPs help banks to create lean teams internally to help reduce costs and prevent parallel teams.

Enhance Applications - MSPs must evaluate the bank’s portfolio of applications and assess each application’s contribution to the overall business strategy. They must build strategic teams to analyze and derive meaningful information on the health of bank’s application portfolio.

Automate - MSPs must improve bank’s operational efficiency by automating standardized, repeatable, and workforce-heavy processes and aligning it to industry accepted best practices.

Transform - MSPs must finally design a strategic roadmap to embrace digital transformation. By leveraging bank’s current IT landscape, MSPs must evaluate innovative technologies that helps in further optimization of cost and business growth. They must consider the overall IT landscape including the stakeholders as one ecosystem and reimagine it through the lens of customer experience, to build a successful banking transformation roadmap.

Final Remarks

A great MSP will always serve as an extension to customer’s existing business and will help them to realize benefits across cash flows, revenues, bottom line, and factors such as customer loyalty and brand recall. Finally, when it comes to delivery-based outcomes, it’s important for organizations to recognize how the partner brings transformational change in the organization, improves ways of working, creates new avenues to customer conversations, drives innovation, and fosters growth.

--By Rohit Shenoy,- Corporate Marketing Lead, Clover Infotech

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