Will managed services save the SMB VAR Community from the evil economic environment?
Can VARS use managed services as the silver bullet to overcome a customer’s lack of capital investment in IT?
I was speaking with a managed services SMB partner last week and he didn’t even care if the economy improved. He actually thought it might be better for him if the economy got worse!!! Maybe managed services are the silver bullet?
To paraphrase my managed services VAR conversation, getting a customer to see an ROI on a 50k Unified Communication deal with professional services tacked on is just not happening today. Soft productivity savings is a tough sell in today’s environment.
However, talking to the business decision makers (operations, finance) about cost savings, doing more with less and they start to perk up. Managed services are definitely not an IT Manager sale since it would be a threat to their employment. This reminds me of the early days of IPT when we’d try and sell IP Telephony to a telecom manager for some big enterprise customer with a legacy PBX. It’s not the most well received message.
Managed Services really seems like a no brainer. Operational Expense vs. Capitol Expense. However, before you claim victory, do managed services play to the average VAR’s strengths? Is it too cookie cutter for the technically inclined VAR to really get fired up about without adding in a bunch of high-end professional services? Does the small VAR have the sales engine needed to grow managed services beyond word-of–mouth and referrals? The jury is still out on that one.
For more juicy gossip on managed services and the technology community in general, check out the VAR Guy. He’s the Perez Hilton of managed services.
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