The Business Solutions Network

If there's been one trend that's really come on strong over the past month, it's been big data. At last month's CompTIA Breakaway event, it was one of the four big trends talked about, and more recently at ScanSource's partner conference, which I attended this week, it was also one of the main topics talked about. As trade publications and the blogsphere continue to explode with big data coverage, be sure you don't make the mistake of confusing coverage repetition with immediate sales opportunities. Like a good sales lead, you'll need to nurture this opportunity for a while before you see any payoff. Here are some revealing facts I learned yesterday on this topic,which came from two online surveys CompTIA conducted in July of this year. Check out my three-minute video to learn about the surprising truth about your customers' big data plans.

I recently attended ScanSource’s Partner conference in Greenville, SC. The value-added distributor celebrated its 20th anniversary. During the morning keynote session, Mike Baur, CEO, identified and Greg Dixon, CTO, expanded on four trends that are disrupting the IT channel:

Every year Business Solutions conducts a survey soliciting feedback from our readers on the topics they like reading about in our publication -- as well as the topics they don't like. This year's survey led to some surprising revelations, which are playing a key role in our 2013 editorial planning, which is already well underway. One thing you won't see as much of next year in the magazine are industry perspectives, which are basically a one-page trend analysis from one company. The feedback we received indicated you find more value when three or four vendors are weighing in on a topic compared with hearing from just one vendor. One new type of editorial that will be taking its place, however is [insert drum roll here] product reviews. Yes, you heard right.

I've been doing a lot of blogging lately on the benefits and challenges of selling managed services. A lot of what I share comes from talking with managed services providers and getting their insights about what works and what doesn't. You can learn from their successes as well as their mistakes. Just in case you missed some of these posts, here's a roundup of the most recent 8:

As I've been talking with networking, storage, and managed services vendors and MSPs about trends they're seeing in the channel and getting feedback on Business Solutions' editorial coverage plans for 2013, I've noticed a common theme emerging to my question: "What are the top challenges MSPs are wrestling with?" Everyone I've spoken with is talking about the hybrid business model that's resulting from break-fix companies trying to make the transition to a recurring revenue business model.

One of the biggest challenges managed services providers face is coming up with the right pricing for their services. We've talked about the pitfalls of underselling your managed services (see "Do You Make This Common MSP Sales Mistake?"), but during my recent conversation with Bob Lawson, product director at GFI Software, he shared some additional mistakes -- 4 to be specific -- that any MSP would be wise to avoid. Here they are: 

In today's video blog, I share the key takeways from my recent interview with Jim Steinlage, president of IT solutions provider and MSP Choice Solutions.

If there's one message Business Solutions makes more than any other, it has to be this: The big winners in the channel are the companies that figure out how to bundle multiple IT hardware and software products, wrap services around these offerings, and sell total solutions. After my interview with Jim Steinlage, president of Choice Solutions, I realized there is a pretty big clarification and caveat we need to make to this claim.