New Year's Resolution #1: Start Selling Managed Services

By The Business Solutions Network

With the holidays just behind us, it's the perfect time to start thinking about setting goals for 2013. For the 60% of you (according to CompTIA's research) that still aren't selling managed services, what better time than the present to start thinking about how you can change your business from break-fix to managed services or add managed services as an option for your customers?

Most of the VARs-turned-MSPs I've spoken with over the past year say that the first key ingredient to making the switch is selecting an RMM (remote monitoring and management) solution, which enables you to monitor your customers' servers and workstations from your office (or from you mobile device, in some cases). There are actually quite a few choices a VAR/MSP needs to consider before selecting an RMM solution and there's certainly not a one-size-fits-all choice among the dozen solutions available.

But, don't worry, you don't need to invest weeks of research testing and comparing all the RMM solutions out there -- Business Solutions has already done a lot of that legwork for you. We recently teamed up with managed services provider Remote Technology Management and tested seven of the top RMM solutions. You can find the write-up in our latest issue of the magazine, or you can find the write-up on our website. If you're looking for one silver bullet winner, you won't find it. But, what you will find are helpful comparisons across several key categories that will help you select the RMM that's right for your business. Here are some of the criteria compared in the test:

1. NOC services and locations
2.  Agent vs. Agentless solutions
3. SaaS vs. On-Premise choices
4. MDM (mobile device management) support
5.  Pricing structures

Plus, we have an expanded online review of each product. Check it out and let me know what you think. Also, if you like this, don't miss our next managed services product review, which will be on BDR (backup and disaster recovery) products, coming out March 1st.