State Of Managed Services: Where We Are And Where We're Going – The Channel Ecosystem
By John Oncea
MSPs are special people. I’ve been fortunate to cross paths with many of them as Digital Editorial Director for MSP Insights. In fact, over the past three years, I’ve posted close to 500 MSP-written guest columns.
So when long-time contributor Dede Haas, an award-winning high-tech sales professional and founder of DLH Services, suggested we do a series of podcasts with MSPs I didn’t hesitate when saying, “Yes.” A couple of brainstorming sessions and a handful of emails later State Of Managed Services: Where We Are And Where We’re Going was born.
Recording Link Below
We had the concept, topics, and technology: all that was missing were guests. But like I said – MSPs are special people … special people who like to talk. Within a week four MSPs agreed to give us a couple of hours of their time and we recorded four 20-or-so-minute podcasts. Those four participants are:
- Christopher Barber, Chief Nerd at Cheaper Than A Geek – an MSP that aims to provide the support of an entire IT department for companies as small as 1-10 employees. With a fanatical emphasis on great customer service, Cheaper Than A Geek has won more awards for their customer service than any other IT provider in the DC, MD, VA area.
- Dawn Sizer, whose career in IT began in 1995 and culminated in 2005 with the formation of her own MSP, 3rd Element Consulting. During that time, she led her clients to numerous Governor’s Awards for Excellence in IT, helped clients procure grants for law enforcement data sharing, and currently speaks at professional organizations and universities on technology and security topics throughout the year. Dawn also hosts her own podcast, Rebelexecutives.com which is available on your favorite podcast platform.
- Jim Buchanan, who founded Buchanan Technologies in 1988 in a small suburb of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metropolitan area and has since grown it through smart technology advancements, business acquisitions, and strong people management.
- Zina Hassel, award-winning author of My Armadillo Skin: How I Made It As A Woman In The Field Of Telecom and CEO of ZLH Enterprises, a technology consultancy with roots in the telecom, customer premise equipment, and structured cabling markets.
Episode Three: The Channel Ecosystem
In this episode, we look at how MSPs can foster better relationships with partners, what partners can do to establish and lose trust, problems caused by partners moving into manages services, and more. If you’re wondering what a partner ecosystem is, you aren’t alone.
According to Marketo, every partner ecosystem is different but at the most basic level, a partner ecosystem is a system of records that displays all of the partnerships a company has created. A partner ecosystem takes a different incarnation at every company because each one reflects the needs of a different set of customers. It may have reviews, it may be an app store, it may show a mix of application and service partners, and it may incorporate a developer community.
Recording link
Listen to the other episodes in this series:
Episode One: Hiring and Retaining Talent
Episode Two: The Good, Bad, And Ugly Of Partner Relationships