Create Stability, Profitability With Managed Services

By The Business Solutions Network

Focusing on recurring revenue opportunities and spinning off specialty IT companies were two keys to this MSP’s sevenfold profitability growth over a seven-year period.

Yes, but …” is the response many VARs give when shown the immediate revenue gained from a break-fix IT project compared with the long-term revenue stream resulting from a managed services contract. “Yes, mathematically it makes sense to sell managed services, but we have bills to pay now and can’t afford the risk of making any changes.” Or a similar response: “Yes, I would like to have more predictable monthly income, but what I’m doing is working for now, and I don’t want to disrupt that.”

Chris Canada, CEO and founder of Onsupport, and Randy Steinle, vice president of Onsupport, recall the earlier break-fix days of their company when going after a 1,000-seat Exchange migration and other one-off projects were the unapologetic goal of every salesperson in the organization. That plan worked just fine until the 2008 recession hit and Onsupport saw a major contraction in IT projects. “Customers were no longer committing to any IT projects that couldn’t guarantee a two-month ROI,” recalls Canada. Tough times have a way of helping business owners get focused and get around to making the difficult changes they didn’t have to make before. And, that’s exactly what Onsupport did.