MSPs: Hello 2016!

Forward Looking Statements

It’s old news that the SMB channel has changed. For the purposes of this blog, you can refer to recent posts from Techaisle (HERE and HERE ). Even the New York Times chatted about technology disruptions in 2015 HERE (albeit a somewhat different take, but the point is well taken). In 2015, you got the memo on the need to reinvent yourself. What follows is how.

Start Over

One step at a time. With channel changes at hand, it’s a fine opportunity to return to the basics and have a solid game plan of Xs and Os. Start with your operations workflow. The easiest way to improve your productivity is to become more efficient. So, challenge yourself to look at how your business works when you turn the key at 8AM. Are you using an enterprise-wide “backbone” to run your MSP practice? Or are you using a series of duct-taped, unrelated solutions trying to run your business? Are you using existing PSA/RMM/remote management solutions either inefficiently or overpaying for (or both?). If you answered affirmatively to any of the above scenarios, consider the following. There is a third-way: Atera. This start-up is out to disrupt how MSPs operate. This is a company that ate its own dog food in creating an all-in-one MSP backbone solution that include PSA, RMM and remote functionality at up to 40% less than current entrenched SMB channel legacy solutions. And consider the following: to argue that your customers should move core business operations to the cloud, you must do the same.

Partner Evidence

Now for the heart of this conversation. How have partners started over to accommodate the new reality of being an MSP in 2016? Read on: Atera is providing a disruptive, economic all-in-one MSP management SaaS platform that includes PSA, RMM and remote management capabilities. I spoke with one Atera partner in Tampa Bay, Florida. He is Martin Margheim, owner/operator of an independent PC consultancy (KODOT), and he is one of us. He’s a computer guy with over 25-years of experience and has deep, long-term relationships with his SMB clients. Margheim is skeptical by nature, and looking at new technologies to deploy is something he regularly does. But he truly lives by the mantra “do no harm.” I was surprised how enthusiastic he is about Atera. As a smaller partner, Margheim’s journey has taken him through every Tampa Bay-area PSA and RMM solution provider who he found to be disinterested in his business and elusive when discussing per device versus per technician pricing (Atera uses per technician pricing). “They didn’t want my business and I found all of the PSA and RMM providers want to “blue sky” you by selling you more licenses than you need.” He conveyed that it felt like a case of the gold rush mentality: that the suppliers (PSA/RMM vendors) selling shovels and shoes to gold miners (MSPs) got rich in the late 1880s, and not the gold miners themselves. “I could never get a definitive answer on costs from one Florida-based RMM provider.”

Margheim wants to be a long-term MSP using the latest tools (especially remote management) to properly serve his customers. He fancies himself a single virtual IT provider (a smart pivot by the way from, by his own admission, his own self-perception of being a dinosaur). “I think Atera has a better approach. It’s per technician pricing hooked me in the first 60-days. My SMB customers just aren’t’ going to pay $60/per month/per PC for monitoring and management. Thus, the Atera MSP platform model fits a flexible, workable and affordable solution with considerable growth opportunity. I do not subscribe to a per device business model for anything IT. The changes are just too frequent and dynamic for such a model.”
Finally, Margheim boasted about his working relationship with Atera. He is constantly providing feedback and has received return communications the same day. Margheim’s love for remote management has already resulted in several improvements in Atera’s all-in-one MSP management platform. And that’s what community is all about, baby!atera rgb1 200x52 1 200x88PS

Digging Deeper

I take my role as an independent community ombudsman seriously. So I wanted to talk to another Atera partner to validate a few of the observations Margheim shared. Manny Da Silva, an existing Atera partner, offered these facts based on his experience. “Atera’s remote software is so small, it is quick to install. In literally 30 seconds, it's up and running. Whereas with the other ones we tested, some of them took 15 to 20 minutes.” Da Silva shared. “The ticketing system is great. It literally took me 10-15 minutes to set up. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) functionality and the contract functionality, awesome. And, every time a ticket gets generated, you pick the service contract that you want. So no more guessing about what to bill the clients.”

For more on Atera, Click Here.

In future blogs, I’ll share with you my review of the Atera product, and what my experience was using it personally. Have a fantastic 2016!