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Customers Say MSPs Help Make Them More Competitive

 
 
By Gina Roos  |  Posted 2015-06-17
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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    1 - Customers Say MSPs Help Make Them More Competitive
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    Customers Say MSPs Help Make Them More Competitive

    More firms are adopting managed services for a variety of reasons, including to improve the efficiency of their IT operations. It isn't just about cost anymore.
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    2 - Growth in Managed Services Adoption
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    Growth in Managed Services Adoption

    68% of organizations have used an outside IT firm for services to manage one or more of their IT functions or other IT project work in the last year.
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    3 - Collaboration Benefits
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    Collaboration Benefits

    60% of respondents said their managed services engagement is a collaborate arrangement with their internal IT department.
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    4 - Understanding Managed Services
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    Understanding Managed Services

    52% of respondents said they were very familiar with the concept of managed services in 2014, compared were 36% in 2013.
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    5 - Adoption Drivers for Large Enterprises
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    Adoption Drivers for Large Enterprises

    For organizations with 100-plus employees, the key factors for using managed services include improving efficiency/reliability of IT operations (56%), enhancing security/compliance (38%) and freeing IT staff to work on strategic projects (38%).
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    6 - Adoption Drivers for SMBs
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    Adoption Drivers for SMBs

    For organizations with less than 100 employees, the key factors for using managed services include improving efficiency/reliability of IT operations (47%), enhancing security/compliance (38%) and taking a proactive approach to maintenance (31%).
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    7 - Not All About Cost
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    Not All About Cost

    30% of respondents cited cost savings as a primary driver, compared with 57% in the 2013 study.
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    8 - Meeting Cost Expectations
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    Meeting Cost Expectations

    However, 54% of respondents expected a modest cost savings at the outset of a MSP engagement, and 30% expected significant savings. Meanwhile, 69% said the cost savings met their expectations, and 24% said it exceeded their expectations.
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    9 - Billing Preferences
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    Billing Preferences

    About half of respondents prefer flat-rate pricing, including 55% of larger firms (100-plus employees), compared with 43% of smaller firms.
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    10 - Making the Grade
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    Making the Grade

    27% of respondents were very satisfied with their managed services experience, 63% were mostly satisfied and 9% were pretty satisfied/partly dissatisfied.
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    11 - Top Services
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    Top Services

    Services currently provided as part of a MSP engagement include backup/disaster recovery (72%), security (68%), storage (64%), email (63%), networks (61%) and cloud infrastructure/applications (60%).
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    12 - Wish List
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    Wish List

    Services that are not part of a current MSP engagement but that are desired include audio/visual services (36%), encryption services (35%), application monitoring (34%), help desk (34%) and mobile device management (33%).
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    13 - Impact on IT Staff
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    Impact on IT Staff

    9% of respondents said they eliminated their IT staff when they signed on with an MSP, and another 26% reduced internal head count.
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    14 - Adoption Barriers
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    Adoption Barriers

    The top barriers to adoption of managed services include skepticism over cost savings/ROI, general lack of need, reluctance to outsource to an outside company, perceived loss of control by IT or operations staff, and concern over disruptions during transition.
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    15 - MSP Outreach
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    MSP Outreach

    47% of non-MSP adopters said they were approached in the last two years by an MSP offering an assessment of their IT environment. Of those, 18% agreed to the assessment and 29% declined.
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    16 - Missed Opportunities
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    Missed Opportunities

    Almost 40% of respondents believe their current IT management methods are working fine, but 61% believe there is room for improvement.
 

Organizations are becoming more knowledgeable about managed services and are relying increasingly on providers to deliver a variety of IT services, according to CompTIA research, which includes a survey of 350 executives in the end-user community. More than two-thirds of the companies polled have used the services of an outside IT firm in the past 12 months. Growing customer awareness has helped drive adoption—52 percent of respondents said they are very familiar with the concept of managed services, while another 40 percent said they are somewhat familiar. This signals that the market is moving into a more positive direction, said Carolyn April, senior director, industry analysis, CompTIA. "It could be an indicator that MSPs are doing a better job of evangelizing the business model and promoting the benefits of managed services." Combined with the publicity around cloud, it has piqued end-user interest in any service provider type of model, she added. The study shows that managed services customers no longer see cost savings as the biggest driver for adoption and are looking at other factors, such as becoming more competitive. Here are key takeaways from the study that MSPs can use to refocus their sales strategies.