4 Ways Automation Improves Business Productivity
By Neal Bradbury, Senior Director of Channel Development, Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda
Productivity is something everyone aims to improve upon. Whether you are a business owner, part of the sales team, handle customer service, or manage the organization’s IT infrastructure, there is always room to improve.
For several decades now, IT organizations have relied on automation to improve workflows and increase efficiencies. Today, the movement toward automation continues and is gaining a strong foothold in the IT channel as MSPs and IT solution providers realize the benefits of engaging with providers of remote monitoring and management (RMM) and professional services automation (PSA) tools.
In addition to offering big productivity gains and reducing the cost of doing business, RMM and PSA tools can provide MSPs and IT solution providers the ability to better protect their customers’ critical data and infrastructure by improving the efficiency of their backups. Here are four reasons why this is true.
- Automated Ticketing. Centralized ticketing, reporting, and logging means that customers don’t have to wait for an administrator to notice an issue has arisen during a backup. With automated ticketing, notifications regarding interruptions or backup irregularities are sent immediately to an administrator so that they can respond and resolve issues quickly.
- Centralized Monitoring. Many of today’s RMM/PSA tools offer an integrated dashboard makes it easier for MSPs and IT solution providers to centrally monitor backups in real time. This also helps them keep an eye on the data they are protecting for their customers so they can respond quickly and efficiently to any issues that may come up.
- Insights and Metrics. Through the dashboard feature available with many RMM/PSA tools, MSPs and IT solution providers can pull data specific to customer accounts. This provides more visibility into the reliability of their backups and gives them the ability to track recurring issues that should be addressed right away.
- Billing. Centralized backup reporting makes it easier for MSPs and IT solution providers to track usage and bill customers according to their plan, streamlining the billing process so it takes less time.
Automation is not a silver bullet for success, but it can free up more time to focus on your business, including your associates and customers. We all need to learn more from our successes and failures. The data and capabilities provided from automation allow that to happen faster and with greater efficiency. In many ways, automation simplifies success and brings a renewed balance to the 24/7 lifestyle of today’s MSP.
Neal Bradbury is Senior Director of Business Development for Intronis MSP Solutions by Barracuda, a provider of backup and data protection solutions for managed services providers, where he is responsible for generating greater business value for the company’s MSP partner community and alliance partners.