Peter Drucker’s famous quote “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” is a foundational concept for many businesses. But for MSPs, a minor edit really brings it all home: “If you can’t MONITOR it, you can’t manage it.”
At the core of every MSP’s business is the ability to keep track of what’s happening with their client’s various systems and assets, and there’s really no scalable or reliable way to do that without a Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) platform. No customer would want to do business with an MSP that doesn’t leverage one, and no MSP should want to attempt running their business without one.
The alerts, reporting, automated workflows, patching and asset management that an RMM tool provide are essential to run an MSP of any size that’s looking for efficiency and profitability. It’s simply not optional in this day and age.
It’s never too early for a PSA
Unlike RMM tools, smaller MSPs may view Professional Services Automation (PSA) solutions as an unnecessary luxury item for a scrappy up-and-coming business still trying to build out its customer base. But bad habits are hard to shake… and extremely likely to be formed when a company is “winging it” with homegrown, piecemeal solutions. Forward-thinking MSPs should try to create a scalable, efficient workflow as early as possible in their lifecycle.
Not only will a PSA reinforce best practices and help MSPs deliver better customer services more efficiently, it can train staff to do things the right way from Day One. MSPs utilizing a PSA can also head off potentially catastrophic customer-facing missteps when they’re still trying to build their brand and reputation.
Regardless of whether an MSP is just a few folks in a garage or a $20 million business with thousands of endpoints under management, there’s no substitute for the benefits a PSA has to offer. A PSA purpose-built for the MSP market is working best when you barely notice it working at all. With a “just-right” mix of features and functionality, a PSA tool serves its purpose and gets out of the way, letting you focus on serving customers and not being a slave to an administration tool.
This is primarily accomplished through minimal clicks and maximum integrations. With a simple, intuitive user interface, a PSA can streamline tasks while providing the reporting and tracking that makes account management and customer service a breeze. And by automatically working with dozens of systems from multiple vendors, there’s no need to duplicate work in multiple environments, allowing staff to rely on automation to cut down on repetitive tasks and avoid manual mix-ups.
Purchasing for today AND tomorrow
MSPs may have a pretty good idea of what they need from a PSA or RMM tool and can narrow down their choices based on the features each vendor has to offer. But before they know it, MSPs will – hopefully – have a larger roster of clients, additional employees and new services that they’re offering.
That’s why every MSP, regardless of their size or maturity, should be thinking ahead when they select a vendor for these essential solutions they’ll be relying on. Even if they don’t need the Full Monty right now, they’ll eventually need more, and they should be investing in solutions that will scale with them as they grow.
That’s why vendors with tiered offerings that offer seamless upgrades and feature unlocking are the ideal provider for these bedrock platforms. Being able to add additional capabilities without the disruption and cost of a migration is a huge benefit when that time comes, and something every savvy MSP should be anticipating and considering.
The benefits of joining forces
Just like an MSP shouldn’t settle for an RMM or PSA solution that ONLY provides what they need right now and doesn’t offer an upgrade path for the future, they also shouldn’t be considering these purchases in a silo. While each of these tools is powerful in their own right, when you run your business on an RMM and PSA combo that was built to work together from soup to nuts you can level up for a whole other dimension of productivity.
A smooth and efficient workflow doesn’t just improve the quality of life for your staff – it has a direct impact on customer satisfaction. With a combined and fully integrated RMM and PSA solution, you can reduce ticket turnaround time by 40% thanks to automated syncing and ticket deduping.
With a combined solution you’ll also have access to integrated and automated workflows that would otherwise require additional, clunky steps. For example, some combined offerings enable you to launch remote sessions directly from a ticket or building apps on top of common APIs.
Sorting through the options
At Kaseya, we realize that figuring out the right RMM and PSA tool for each MSP isn’t simple, which is why we created a buyer’s guide specifically for MSPs looking to purchase the right combination of solutions for their business’s current and future needs. This free guide will help you figure out where your business lies on the size and maturity spectrum and details which features you should be looking for in a potential vendor.
We want every MSP to be successful, and we firmly believe that a unified suite of RMM and PSA tools is the best approach to tackle the current and future challenges as efficiently and affordably as possible.
Miguel Lopez is senior VP of managed services providers at Kaseya. Read all Kaseya blogs here.
