The Importance Of Business Outcomes In The Evolving IT Space
By Adam Dawson, Marketing Communications Manager, TBI
Convergence is forcing VARs and MSPs to evolve and offer a more complete package. Customers today are looking for more out of their technology, and partners unwilling or not equipped to deliver that risk losing business to competitors that can. To be successful, MSPs and VARs need to strategically align with providers so they can win together as a team instead of lose alone.
To start, partners must build trust with customers by selling business outcomes focused around technology. Those that can effectively speak to end user businesses understand what keeps them up at night, what success looks like, and what items they need to improve on. These are the partners that will win. It’s easier said than done because this requires being nimble enough to adapt to a rapidly changing industry.
Providers Are Evolving
Providers are quickly consolidating their offerings to improve product margins. Many are expanding their security, cloud computing, and managed services portfolios. For example, CenturyLink seeks to improve its network security options after acquiring Level 3. On top of that, Windstream is purchasing Earthlink; Verizon sold its datacenter business to Equinix and picked up XO’s fiber business; and Zayo is purchasing Electric-Lightwave/Integra. Additionally, Cisco and other hardware manufacturers have added predictive security intelligence, NFV, and SDN to their portfolios.
This is all in response to current trends. More and more end-user businesses are reducing their reliance on servers and increasing use of tablets, cloud, and software. Instead of overpaying for machines, they’re increasing efficiencies by upgrading their connections and running smart software on affordable hardware. As a result, many providers are selling their hardware business and putting more focus on software and cloud.
VARs and MSPs should be concerned about this because it represents direct competition with providers. They must protect their relationships by forging the right technology partnerships and leveraging a more expansive suite of solutions. The closer core software apps come to delivering a user-based model, the more the industry is going to consolidate. In turn, the more important it will be for VARs and MSPs to align with the providers working to deliver solutions that answer real-world challenges.
Customers Want Advisors
Through all of this change, customers are going to want to know context. How does this new technology apply to their environment? How does it fit within their current systems? In what ways will it help them better their business? Ultimately, they want to be guided towards technology will help them grow, increase revenue, and improve efficiencies.
For example, SD-WAN pushes business outcomes sales because of its ability to prioritize application flow, increase speed to market for branch locations, and simplify network management of multiple sites. This is what partners need to speak to when selling this solution. They should highlight how prioritizing application flow ensures critical traffic receives adequate bandwidth, or how having one platform to manage network for all branch locations frees time for IT to focus more on revenue-generating activity.
Likewise, when selling a DDoS mitigation solution, partners should focus on how it will protect the end user. They should highlight how the solution will greatly reduce network downtime during an attack, saving them from financial and reputational damages. Another good point to touch on is how the technology makes withstanding a DDoS attack more manageable. It wards off an attack, freeing IT teams to monitor for additional threats, like data breaches that can lead to compliancy fines and legal issues.
Being able to fluently discuss the value a technology provides won’t come overnight. To reach this level of knowledge, partners will need to invest in education. The more educated they are on their offerings, the better business outcomes they’ll be able to produce. At the end of the day, great relationships are built on trust, and customers will trust the advisor that steers them correctly.
Looking ahead, every VAR and MSP should be thinking about the change coming in the near future, and how to stay ahead of it. They need to recognize their value is more than just themselves and strategically align with providers to sell business outcomes focused around technology. In doing so, their customers will continue coming to them for future opportunities because they’re smart, and most importantly, they know how to win.
Adam Dawson is TBI’s Marketing Communications Manager. As the organization’s wordsmith, he is responsible for creating engaging content and carrying out internal and external communications programs. This includes circulating information to TBI’s agent partners, educating them on hot topics in the industry, and guiding them to the best provider products and solutions for their portfolios. You can reach Adam at adawson@tbicom.comor connect with him on LinkedIn.