managed service providers know that they want to offer exemplary service oriented hosted customers, including applications and hosted the desktops. But these companies (players going niche players worldwide Telcos) also all struggle with the same questions: What are good services to lead with? What customer size should I pursue in which markets? Do the important market of geography? How and when do I expand my service offerings? 
Arriving at the first Defining the appropriate service is essential to answer most of these questions in order to enter the market more intelligently. In other words, this initial portfolio Service is best to choose? During the service definition, the boil service providers down almost always options to three potential categories to offer:
- A hosted desktop "horizontal" generic
- A "vertical" specific to the hosted desktop market
- personalized services for designing customized desktops to meet the needs of customers
in this blog, I will try to answer decision points of service definition (and pitfalls) Citrix recommends us as well as those with which we see the most frequent success.
The first high-level decision
The first recommendation I always do, is avoid starting with the # 3 option - leader with a personalized desktop hosted offering. Although the design of the measurement technology is at the heart of many MSP differentiation, the ability to scale is absolutely essential to a profitable initial offer office ... and a "tailored" strategy scale. The implementation of hosted desktop is not trivial - and personalization is not. . Leading with a customized offer for labor will likely strip the profitability of the initial projects and jeopardize any follow-on business
This leaves the question: Offers a vertical supply (market-specific) compared to horizontal offer (? generic) Office
My recommendation is as follows: whatever your size, unless your company already has the strength and experience in vertical market lead with a horizontal solution
By "strength" in a vertical market, i mean that you have at least (a) tenders and existing customers in a vertical industry or clearly defined, (b) experience in a specialized field such as security, compliance, regulation, etc. (C) a sales force that knows how to sell in this vertical / industry / specialization, and / or (d) a marketing focus and demand generation in that vertical / industry / specialization. If you can say you have strength in one or more of these areas, while providing a "vertical" hosted application or desktop service on the market could be a logical line extension for the company. However, if you can not demonstrate that you have one or more of these field forces and the creation of knowledge, presence and supply will be difficult or impossible for you out-of- the holder. And even if you do, others already experienced in this market you eat for lunch.
The next level decisions
This leaves the decision to enter the market first with a more generic / horizontal offer. (Not to say that you can not provide average small / large variations / for example, or generic offerings that meet specific needs such as security, compliance and regulatory requirements, above). This way you position the hosted service as an opportunity to up-sell your customers force and existing sales. And as you do, you'll also gain important experience and lessons on creating, offering and supporting a hosted service of great value.
As you gain customer acceptance, customers can slowly lead you to greater specialization until you can over time migrate find yourself in one or more specific vertical solutions.
in all but a few cases I recommend that MSP eventually pursue a vertical or specialized offer. (See my earlier blog, Differentiate or Die - why MSPs and hosting providers must change their game) exceptions being very large providers - often Telcos -. who meet frequently to a wide audience of consumers
These are the applications, stupid
Well, really it's about the value you create with applications and other services you offer. When you start to specialize, there are 3 main areas where you can differentiate
- Applications - It is clear that the trait most determinant of a hosted offering of market-based office is the bundled applications. In addition to regular productivity applications, you'll want to offer (or broker) applications specific to the industry - say for accounting, inventory, manufacturing, construction, etc .. Most of the associations of industry, software surveys (and of course customers) can help you identify the critical applications, you need to incorporate into the workspace to meet customer needs
- services -. the other components of value of your offer will include services such as unified communications, storage / backup, back-end graphics, or maybe just old excellent customer / support service. Anyway, count on your customers and market requirements to help you determine what these are, and how you use them to differentiate your offerings
- specific market needs -. The other approach to creating high value and a differentiated offer on the market is to continue other specific market needs such as regulatory compliance, service performance / SLA, privacy controls (think HIPAA), data sovereignty, etc. not all of them are not necessarily based on the product, but you will find that some markets will seek out suppliers who specialize in these and other areas
find your size customer sweet spot -. and develop from there
other recommendation that I give most often is to determine the appropriate size customer. For most MSP Delving into the hosted desktops and applications hosted in general I suggest to target customers with between 50-0 seats.
This is because anything smaller will have significant start-up costs relative to revenues being. For if you do not master the boarding so replicable at low cost, hunting small price choke you. Furthermore, the claim relates to more than ~ 0 seats companies can also be a problem, since the larger customers tend to require more customization ... and we're back to risk profitability with a high content hand.
Once you establish a flexible offer in the range 50-0 seat and gain sales experience, standing up, and the onboarding of clients, you can begin to go "upmarket "chasing larger transactions. You won the confidence that you can make the necessary customizations, and know intuitively how well your infrastructure scales. You can even try to go "down market" and the pursuit of small transactions, assuming that you have automated much of your infrastructure and on-boarding, reducing the small customer the rise time.
Putting it all together
in summary, most hosted desktops providers would enter the market with an offer or "generic" for general use. over time, you targeting larger - and maybe even find economic accepting small many sizes too
most of the time because of customer . demand, over time you will find the opportunity to offer your first vertical beam / specializing in the market ... and perhaps a next point, you will gain the experience and knowledge to add second vertical, and so forth.
Remember: This is only an initial model and a set of suggestions. Your specific situation, market and technical capabilities vary.
The good news is that the Citrix Service Provider program has a lot of other resources, and the methods of discovery facility that we bring to bear when you set your entry level and follow services. -on For more information on joining the Citrix program, see below.
Additional Resources
- Citrix Service Provider Program
- [Blog] Differentiate or Die: Why MSPs and Hosters need to change their game
- [Blog] What is the size of the hosted desktop market?
- [Blog] Five steps to a failed IT-as-a-Service Offering
0 Komentar