Bull's Eye Award: Channel Support Service of the Year - Challenger

Kutenda
Success in managed services is changing the customer relationship equation from one-to-one to one-to-many service delivery. Profitability from the recurring revenue comes from scaling customers faster than adding service delivery capacity. And that’s the challenge facing many managed service providers—finding and converting customers. The solution is effective marketing. Mike Cooch, chief executive of Everon Technology Services and an innovator in the managed services market, recognized this problem and created Kutenda, a marketing program and service in a box designed specifically for managed service providers.

Kutenda is a Web-based suite of tools that include a content management system for designing a Website for promoting managed services, an e-mail and search marketing platform for creating and distributing promotional content and special messages to prospects, and a contact management system for nurturing leads through the sales cycle. This may sound relatively rudimentary to some solution providers and MSPs; after all, who doesn’t have a Website nowadays? But the problem that Kutenda addresses is more than just having an online presence. Its package enables MSPs to quickly create a search-friendly Website, complete with optimized keywords that helps surface the MSP higher in end-user search query results. E-mail newsletters also seem rudimentary, but designing and managing newsletters is a hassle. Kutenda provides the system for creating and distributing newsletters, as well as a library of content to round out newsletters. The system tracks prospect interaction with distributed content, continually requalifying leads until they’re ripe for quick closing.

Services and applications such as Kutenda are fairly common. However, few exist with this level of robustness and specificity for small businesses and managed service providers. Kutenda is truly addressing a gap in the managed services business model and providing small MSPs with a quality tool for growing their customer base and revenue. For that, Kutenda has earned the Channel Insider Challenger Bull’s Eye Award for Channel Support Service of the Year.