Bits & Bytes

What We’re Reading: February 2020 Welcome to the February edition of “What We’re Reading,” where we break down top public cloud and channel stories that could impact our global partner base. Let us...

With the right migration tool, migrating from Office 365 to Office 365 doesn't have to be a hassle. Migrating from Office 365 to Office 365—especially when you want to keep the domain name—can be...

Securing the Weakest Link: Educate End Users about Cyber Risks A disheartening upward trend Nearly every day you read about a new malicious attack on computer networks of vital businesses around the...

CX Management: Your Top-Line And Bottom-Line Growth, Part One What is CXM? If you ask 10 different people "What is CXM?" you will probably get 10 different answers. Some may talk about how easy a...

Recurring Revenue Sales Plans That Rock Your sales plan won't work in a recurring revenue world for two reasons. You’ve taken your transactional-based sales plan and perhaps altered it slightly. No...

Building Cloud Services Recurring Revenue: 5 Metrics Revenue, profit and cash flow are the ultimate measurements that validate how you are truly doing as a business. In this brief, I want to explore...

The How Of Fixing Slow Networks, For Your Cloud's Sake The reality is that more network activity is moving to the WAN and Internet. And visibility and control of network traffic is becoming more...

Microsoft SMB Partners: Know Thy Competencies And Incompetencies Most Microsoft Partners that focus on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are themselves SMBs. No SMB, whether customer or...

Begun The Cloud War Has! The Cloud War?! It’s not quite as dramatic as Yoda ominously announcing the start of the Clone Wars. It's legacy vendors and distributors (who rely on channel partners for a...

CX Management: Who's The Best (Plus Metrics For Success!), Part Two In our first post, I talked about what CX (customer experience) can mean to different people, working on a CX strategy for your...

Crafting a Recurring-Revenue Sales Plan The right sales plan plays a vital role in achieving sustainable and growing revenue for any business. As an organization transitions to a recurring revenue...

The Gross Profit Challenge What obstacles do value-added resellers, IT solution providers and managed service providers face? The old profit pools are shrinking, and if you’re a leading channel...

Customer Satisfaction Is Not Customer Loyalty: Why It Matters If your customers are happy, it doesn’t matter whether you use the term customer satisfaction or customer loyalty to explain how they...

The Five Stages Of VAR Grief It is traumatic to lose what once was, a loved one, a cherished pet or that great pair of blue jeans. It’s an undesired change in our lives. Many VARs, IT Solution...

Hybrid VAR – Don’t Overreact, But … The increasing demand for cloud services is forcing value-added resellers (VARs) and solution providers to assess their current business models and the services...

Why Modern MSPs Must Think and Act Like SaaS ISVs: Three Reasons Does a modern MSP have to think like a SaaS ISV? Modern MSPs are almost never SaaS ISVs! How does/must a SaaS ISV think?

The Gross Profit Challenge: Overcoming Obstacles in the Cloud Era Many of the old profit pools are shrinking, and if you’re a leading channel company you are under immense pressure to sustain your...

When It Comes to MSP Profit, One Size Does Not Fit All There are hundreds of conversations moving around in the industry today about all the things you can do to be a great Modern MSP. The truth is...

Report: Migrating Email and Archives to Microsoft Platforms There's no substitute for data. A lack of information about an industry, customers, competitors, or even their own organization leaves...

Artificial Intelligence: Four Tips to Increase Customer Retention Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed the way businesses operate, and will continue to do so. This is especially true when it...

Cloud to Become a $216B Business - Here's What ITSPs Need to Know It’s a twelve 12-month journey to become a solid cloud service provider… With Public Cloud spend accelerating to $216B by 2020, the...

3 Truths Every Technology Start-Up Should Know As an entrepreneur and former head of marketing at a SaaS startup that sold to one of the country’s leading MSPs, I understand the challenges of...

A New Strategy for the Channel Sales Leader A Prescription for a Good Night’s Sleep Whether you are a channel sales leader or on the leadership team of a VAR, ITSP, or MSP business, the prescriptive...

Five Key Considerations for Pricing Your Bundled Cloud Services Earlier this week we talked about the transformation to a recurring revenue model. It’s one of the greatest benefits—and most...

Five Ways to Corner the Market for Office 365 This shouldn’t surprise you: A recent article by Windows Central said there are more than 60 million people now using Office 365 at work. If you’re an...

The Importance of Being a Vendor-Neutral MSP When a client is looking to implement new technology, it can feel like they’re being sold to from all directions. Every company with a service is eager...

Are North America Channel Partners Getting in the Cloud? I’ve been thinking of writing this blog now for a while, but wondering: “Am I going to ruffle any feathers?” Well, maybe I’m in the feather...

2017: The Year of Cloud Revenue It's that time of year when we reflect back on the past year and look to want we want from the year ahead. While 2016 brought cloud further into enterprise...

5 Ways for MSPs to Introduce Automation Automation is on the rise as a way to increase revenue. As an MSP, how do you drive greater automation in your services offerings? If you’re still trying to...

How Speaking at Conferences Can Mean Big $$ for Your MSP Business Increase your qualified leads, new customers, partner relationships, and revenue by speaking at industry trade shows and...

Is Your Business Valuation at Risk without Recurring Revenue? Seldom is a business worth what we think. It’s the hard truth that most VAR, ITSP, and MSP leaders fail to acknowledge, and ultimately...

Happy New Year!! What's Your 2017 Prediction? Wishing everyone a spectacular New Year! Where are IT Services Headed this Year? Do you foresee changes in cloud technology? Impacts of new technology...

MSP Marketing Essentials, Part 6: Creating Useful Content This is part six of a six-part series on marketing essentials for IT Services Providers. Feel free to start with part one. When it comes to...

A Christmas Carol for ModernMSPs VAR, IT Solutions Providers and Managed Service Providers On a frigid and foggy Christmas Eve, a shrewd, hard-working, good-spirited businessperson named Vincent...

MSP Marketing Essentials, Part 5: Deciding on the Right System This is part five of a six-part series on marketing essentials for IT Services Providers. Feel free to start with part one. Once you...

Tech News Haikus Regarding Google's Alexa-powered CoWatch, a smartwatch for Android Wear... More than just the time: Personal secretary, Now upon your wrist. Regarding Groups, Snapchat's new...

Are you making the transition from on-premises technology to cloud-first solutions? You're probably getting a lot of questions from your customers. Will you go with public or private cloud? What’s...

Time for IoT Security to Catch Up With a growing market share, the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to affect the way we interact, both personally and professionally. Today, people are connecting...

MSP Marketing Essentials, Part 3: Is Traditional Marketing Dead? This is part three of a six-part series on marketing essentials for IT Services Providers. Feel free to start with part one. People...

SMB Crystal Ball: Finding Value in the New Cloud Paradigm Have you noticed how dramatically the technology world is changing? It’s now all about working with the right technology partner for today’s...

IAAS, PAAS, SAAS, DAAS... Simplifying the Acronym Overload As a modern MSP, you've probably seen or heard the phrase "as a service" more times than you can count. Infrastructure as a Service,...

Do IT Professionals Unplug on Vacation? Most technology service professionals say they are comfortable taking two or three weeks of vacation each year. But what does that mean? Do IT professionals...

ModernMSP Gives Thanks... Thanksgiving is officially upon us. ModernMSP staff would like to share a few things we’re thankful for this year. Let’s start with the IoT hackers. Thanks for releasing...

MSP Marketing Essentials, Part 2: Developing a Strategy This is part three of a six-part series on marketing essentials for IT Services Providers. Feel free to start with part one. When planning the...

China Adds to Its Great Firewall The Chinese government is at it again—this time it’s passing laws and taking names (literally). Recently, in a reactionary and somewhat preemptive move to counter...

MSP Marketing Essentials, Part 1: Assembling the Right Team This is part three of a six-part series on marketing essentials for IT Services Providers. A marketing strategy must constantly evolve and...

ModernMSP: Keeping Up is Exhausting IT services have fallen victim to a never-ending cycle of evolution. What was once the latest trend is now a thing of the past. Technology catalogs have been...

How to Find Prospects Just Like Your Best Clients Think of your top five clients. They don't give you headaches. They pay their bills on time. They are easy to work with. They're even willing to...

Embracing the New Norm Integrated cloud services are altering the way businesses consume IT services. This is especially true for enterprises that are opting to build out cloud-as-a-service...

Cloud Margins: Why Modern MSPs Must Become Chefs Follow my logic here. A close friend of mine, Bob, is a chef/partner at a very successful chain of three fairly high-end restaurants. He has been in...

Internet of Things: Five Reasons It Matters For Managed Services Providers, the Internet of Things (IoT) represents an incredible opportunity for expansion and increased profitability. According...

Security Reminders for the Modern MSP Earlier this week, we gave you a glimpse at how the Twitter verse hilariously reacted to the DDoS hack on October 21st. And while pondering the idea of life...

Marketing Automation: The New Holy Grail A decade ago, marketing was viewed primarily as a cost center whose chief function was to support other groups inside the enterprise, particularly the IT...

The Power of Recurring Revenue What is recurring revenue? Recurring revenue is the portion of a company's revenue that is highly likely to continue in the future. This revenue is predictable,...

SMB Fear of the Cloud Major business changes can be a scary. For small/mid-sized businesses (SMBs), deviating from the status quo can be exceptionally worrisome. This Halloween we wanted to help...

Top 10 MSP Marketing Activities for a Weekend I recently posted that, according to our research, many IT services providers work on the weekends. Well, if you're going to do it, here's our list of...

Account-Based Marketing for ModernMSPs Yesterday, I had a discussion with the Chief Revenue Officer of a modern managed service provider. The company is focused on cloud migration and hybrid cloud...

Simplifying Cloud Adoption: Microsoft's Due Dilligence Checklist Microsoft came to the rescue of companies both big and small last week with the release of its Cloud Services Due Diligence...

The Customer Journey for SaaS-Based Organizations There is a question we all need to ask our Business Deployment Manager, Chief Marketing Officer, or a Director of Sales for our SaaS organization:...

5 Myths About Managed Services and the Cloud Despite its overwhelming popularity, many Managed Services Providers are finding that cloud computing is still being met with incredible resistance....

Closing the Gap of the Managed Services Expert The cloud has brought about a new era for selling IT services, and it asks a lot of providers. Say it with me: caveat venditor. Okay, I don’t speak...

Getting in the Game: The Transition from VAR to MSP Let’s face it, the VAR life has been a good one. Adding services to hardware and software sales has been a huge money-maker for a long time. So,...

7 Essentials to Help You Leap to MSP Success We have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that building success as a Managed Services Provider can be a challenge. But you probably knew...

Cloud Washing: Should MSPs Be Concerned? Migrating enterprise processes to cloud services is one of the biggest technology trends of the last decade. ModernMSP previously reported “public cloud...

Cloud Value for SMBs: Thriving in a Hybrid World Let's talk cloud value. The cloud has emerged, and there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t hear of the immense value it provides to SMB...

The Internal Struggle of Cloud Partners We are witnessing something quite amazing: the unstoppable force of cloud subscriptions, meeting the immovable object of commissioned sales.  Unfortunately,...

Security & Business Continuity for the SMB Information security is a multi-dimensional problem. It goes well beyond user access control to extend into areas of detection, prevention, filtering,...

Fueling Your ModernMSP Sales Funnel Most ModernMSPs would probably say that, after customer satisfaction, customer acquisition is their #1 priority. If your business is going to scale efficiently,...

EU Cloud: Location, Location, Location There’s one less customer argument about moving to the EU cloud, at least as far as Microsoft is concerned. Microsoft recently built two data centers in...

For Cloud, the Customer is Seldom Right I keep hearing lately, that the customer is in control of the technology sales conversation today. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan, who recently passed, was...

Cloud Risks: Learn Before You Earn We’ve shared a number of features recently extolling the virtues of cloud to the recurring revenue potential of the ModernMSP. But, lest you think we’re giving...

When Customers Do Their Homework, MSPs Win Thriving in the cloud is a game of strategy. Like many MSPs, you might find cloud migration, implementation, and management still a bit of a mystery. It...

Cloud Insights: Adopting, Onboarding and Implementing (Part 2) This is part two of a two-part interview with Raphael Köllner, a Microsoft MVP in Office Servers and Services, Windows Top Insider, MCT...

AWS vs Azure: Cloud Giants Tee Up to Compete Amazon Web Services (AWS), consistently first-to-market, has been steadfast in its pursuit of cloud dominance. Controlling roughly 30 percent of the...

Symbiotic Relationship Between CIOs & MSPs Much has been written about the role of the CIO with regard to the benefits of cloud technology, and yet, according to reports, public cloud spending...

I had a great conversation with Raphael Köllner, a Microsoft MVP in Office Servers and Services, Windows Top Insider, MCT and Microsoft Student Partner Evangelist. Raphael is a trainer and speaker...

SMB Cloud Benefits 101 There’s so much talk about cloud, but let’s step back for a moment to cover the basics as they relate to SMBs. Quite simply, cloud computing means that on-premises IT systems,...

3 Ways to Deepen Customer Trust When it comes to the cloud, consumers are now expecting results when making decisions about specific products and services—loyalty has become a thing of past. So what...

How MSPs Can Benefit from Healthcare Verticals There's no question that healthcare is a lucrative industry, but how can MSPs tap into this vertical to increase profitability? MSPmentor’s Maurice...

Racing to the Cloud: Gartner Ranks Top IaaS Vendors In case you missed it, last month Gartner published its annual Magic Quadrant on Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and here’s what we...

Cloud Services to Reach $236 Billion, Forrester Says According to GeekWire, public cloud services are “the biggest disruption in the tech market in the past 15 years—and adoption is accelerating….”...

Margin on Cloud is About Leaves, Not Limbs Just a few short years ago, Microsoft Office 365 launched. At the time, selling the product required genuine knowledge, and migrating to the product...

Quick and Dirty Security Tips for MSPs There’s no question about the benefits of cloud to business. But even in today’s cloud-ready world, people still have reservations regarding its security of...

Dear VAR, We’re Through. If VARs aren’t talking Cloud with their customers, it doesn’t mean their customers aren’t talking about it. In a recent LinkedIn post, Shane Zide of CDW Cloud Portfolio...

Genee Grants Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Wish This week Microsoft announced its acquisition of smart scheduling service, Genee. This agreement adds Microsoft to a running list of major...

Understanding the Buyer's Journey You’ve transformed your on-premises IT solutions to the cloud. You’ve transformed your product-focused business to a recurring revenue services model. But there’s...

Is Demand for Global Cloud Services Jeopardizing User Security? There’s no question about the power of cloud services—they enable everything from massive scalability and virtualized resources to...

Embracing Change: Technology vs. Cloud Solutions and the ModernMSP For decades, we’ve lived in a “technology” world. You know that world—mainframes, min-computers, PC’s, laptops, networking gear,...

Breaking into the Enterprise: 12 TB in Two Days with MigrationWiz Nearly 10,000 users. 20 TB of data in total. Two weekends to migrate. Mission: impossible? Not for us, nor for you. Recently, our...

A Two-Step MSP Strategy for Managed Services Growth If you’re like most IT Solutions Providers, you’ve been reading and hearing about the variations of cloud business models. They include the...

A Competitive Edge: Content Marketing for the ModernMSP Content Marketing is one of the hot topics that has become part of the language of inbound marketing. It’s essentially a process of using...

The ModernMSP and Business Outcomes In a recent article, I mentioned the importance of the ModernMSP focusing on delivering business outcomes to clients. "Business outcomes" is a fairly new...