The Managed Services Opportunity: How You Can Capitalize

In today’s always-on business world, companies require 24/7 availability of network resources. Even a brief period of downtime can severely impact customer experience, tarnish brand reputation, and damage the bottom line. With the complexity of modern IT environments—spanning on-premise data centers, cloud services, and a growing number of devices—securing network performance and resolving issues is increasingly difficult. This is where managed services can play a critical role. The average cost of IT downtime is a staggering $5,600 per minute, according to some reports, emphasizing the need for proactive monitoring and quick incident resolution to protect business operations and profitability​.

What factors contribute to network challenges?

• Skills gap —Demanding consistent responsiveness with minimal idle periods for staff and maintaining the necessary skills makes doing it on your own challenging

• Lack of visibility—Having your network information scattered across multiple tools makes it challenging to get a comprehensive view. Your staff, stakeholders, and vendors need to have the right information to identify the scope and root-cause of IT issues

• Lack of centralized control—Configuring, integrating, and maintaining the necessary tech stack to monitor, report, view, and manage network health can be costly and time-consuming

The “always-on culture:" What business customers are asking for

So, what does the need for flexible, secure networking solutions for digital transformation mean for technology advisors?

Here we'll explore a conversation between Renee Bergeron, COO of AppDirect, and Rick Duran, Vice President of Specialized Services. They discuss the challenge companies face gaining network visibility and how technology advisors can accelerate their growth by offering customers the right tools, team, and skills.

Managed services address these challenges by offering businesses a proactive approach to network management, ensuring high availability, performance, and security. By offloading the burden of day-to-day network operations, businesses can focus on core competencies, reduce downtime, enhance productivity, mitigate risks, and deliver a seamless and reliable user experience to their customers. And, with the right tools and team, organizations can proactively identify and address potential issues before they escalate.

Duran explains what managed service providers and managed services bring to the table.

"A team of experts who watch, triage and resolve network-related and application items on behalf of the client."

He continues:

“In the past, customers wanted to manage their network on their own. They've realized over time that given the rapid change of technology and the complexity, it's best to partner with experts that focus on managed network services”.

The managed services opportunity

As businesses continue to adopt AI and other new technologies, the need for predictable networks is unprecedented. According to a survey by Deloitte, 94 percent of business leaders report that AI is critical to success over the next five years. However, there are significant challenges to meeting project goals. According to Bergeron, managed services can provide the "always-on and predictable network" that businesses desperately need.

Managed services help advisors build more loyal customer relationships, stand out, remain competitive, and deliver greater value. Advisors who add managed services to their portfolios can accelerate their business growth, with the market projected to reach half a trillion dollars in 2024 and $410 billion by 2029.

Bergeron highlights that managed services serve as a foundation for offering other high-value technology solutions as well. Advisors who provide managed services can also sell additional solutions across the tech stack, from cloud and energy to network services and more.

Top advisor benefits of offering managed services

1. Stay ahead of customer needs

2. Become more competitive in the market

3. Capture greater share of customers’ IT budget

4. Open the door to selling cloud and other high-value services

Offering a comprehensive network management solution

Rick Duran, Vice President of Specialized Services for AppDirect explains the importance of the integrated platform as a tool that provides a single pane of glass for clients to see network performance. He highlights the VEEUE® platform, which includes a suite of tools, with a central tool being ServiceNow. Together this integrated tool set includes infrastructure monitoring, real-time ticketing to manage and resolve issues, and insights from AI and machine learning to make data-driven decisions about the network.

Duran explains that often advisors offer the VEEUE platform along with a 24x7x365 Network Operations Center (NOC) team as part of their managed service offering. This team acts upon alerts to proactively detect, understand and resolve connectivity issues, ensuring maximum network uptime.

Jump to 17:30 to hear Rick Duran talk about resources to help you sell managed services

The team highlights the high success rate of closing deals once end customers reach the demo stage.

“What we find is that once we talk to an end user and we do a demo of the VEEUE platform, which is ServiceNow based as well as some other tools, we could typically close about 80% of the opportunities on behalf of AppDirect and for our advisors…”—Jonathan Adler, CEO of AdCom Solutions

NOC opportunity snapshot

• Customer is a supplier of building materials & equipment

• 90 sites

• Very lean IT staff

Customer pain points:

• Simplify the way services are procured

• Connectivity Overhaul

• When issues/outages occur, IT staff stops what they are doing to troubleshoot

• Seeking additional visibility into the network

Results:

• 90 sites, 180 circuits

• VEEUE Monitoring of 2 circuits + Meraki MX per location (270 devices and growing)

• Included Project Management to coordinate installs and mitigate risk for a successful roll out

• Network deal: $2,340,000 over term VEEUE Platform: $4,000 monthly/ $144,000 over term and opportunity To add additional sites and devices onto monitoring (Switches & APs)

Why cross-selling works

Taking the managed services opportunity to the next level, Adler recommends that advisors bundle the VEEUE product with any circuits that they sell, providing a more robust product solution and transitioning from being a transactional seller to a trusted partner.

By understanding customers' pain points, providing solutions to their network challenges, and staying updated with the latest in tech, advisors are well-positioned to take advantage of these opportunities and drive their business growth.

Start with network management selling resources 

Explore AppDirect Academy resources to learn how to have highly productive customer conversations about network management and monitoring solutions. Discover the key pillars of the VEEUE platform, including its ability to monitor a customer’s entire IT environment—hardware, circuits, and more. Plus, dive into its functionality with real-time dashboards, reporting capabilities and incident management. 

Take this VNOC Academy course to learn how to generate new revenue selling managed services.

Ready to start offering managed services? Check out the VEEUE platform available in the AppDirect catalog. Also, catch our AppDirect VNOC webinar to  discover how to generate new revenue with AppDirect Managed Services.