Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the ultimate goal, the most important topic everyone in the IT channel should focus on.
As a comprehensive migration toolset developer for the full MSP, my company helps the service provider go beyond monitoring and executing alerts to complete customer network events. Proactive management only succeeds if MSPs make money.
Thousands have dramatically expanded their businesses by reassuring their customers that their data, email, documents, and all other migrations are complete and accurate when moving from on-premises to
Microsoft Office 365 environments. In addition, they provide the training and ongoing support needed to keep users productive.
So let’s look at how MRR works and then examine the services customers need when assessing the current state of their network, data assets, user communities, and steps for determining their future condition.
They need help selecting their preferred Office 365 plan and the cloud plans that support it, configuring those options, planning and designing their new cloud-based environments, and developing an initial project plan. These are all fee-based, income-generating activities.
Various services are required to execute the project plan, including ordering subscriptions, provisioning and configuring the services, upgrading client devices, migrating data and applications, integrating the benefits of cloud providers, and more.
Then engage users and ensure they are trained to use Office 365 and related applications effectively. Please make sure they are familiar with self-service portals and support options.
Paid scheduling services
Adding value for free shouldn’t be so common, yet resellers, cloud vendors, system integrators, and others are still value-added services. These include initial system design, pre-advising, planning, and order management.
My company’s most successful partners charge for these services. Their first offering to a new customer provides the planning and design needed before Office 365 or any other cloud service can be ordered.
Other paid examples include initial consulting, application inventory and evaluation, solution architecture and cloud services selection, information architecture and capacity planning, security with cloud integration design, and application and environment transition planning.
Ultimately, customers want to go into their first day with their new services ready to manufacture.
Today’s cloud integrators combine various providers’ hardware, software, and services. They are responsible for ensuring that services from multiple cloud providers work well together.
The integrator must provide customers with complete, superior solutions. Data must be backed up. The network and data must be safe and protected. Access must be secure and reliable. User collaboration must be facilitated, and applications must achieve desired functions and results.
The value of an MSP depends on awareness of shifts in the cloud services market, its impact on customers, and recommendations for their business.
Growing revenues from migration and deployment
Customers have turned to most channel partners for help after trying to deploy Office 365 independently. Some find many cloud services challenging to implement. They need expert help, as many find the provisioning and implementation challenging to configure IP addresses, DNS servers, and other Internet services.
Data migration is even more challenging. A project can be a simple transition with a migration app or require a lot of conversion, reassignment, and account manipulations. Again, a customer should be completely ready to use the new services on day one.
MSPs cannot remain reactive. Ting on the applications, platform, security best practices, and self-service portals must be completed before deployment. This requires confirming the functionality of each user device, plus each user’s readiness.
Serv This requires confirming the functionality of each user device, plus each user’s readiness. Ices to include in a complete program during the transition include user transition training, cloud service delivery, email system migration, email archiving, data migration, and user deployment and rollout.
MRR is generated from Office 365 licenses, data backup, online security, and other cloud services that pay commissions.
Some of these services as the help desk and field support, are well known. Most are well-known MSPs offering network monitoring, including alerts and action on anomalies, monthly performance reporting, regular reviews, improvement recommendations, and more.
Every cloud-delivered service requires monitoring. Customers need an objective third party to keep those providers honest. We, customers, need an objective third party to support those providers real. n almost guarantee that an SLA performance report from the provider will always match their bill—Capacity management in the cloud. An important value of cloud computing is that users only pay for what they use. But someone needs to keep an eye on the storage, memory, and processor services users ask to determine when they’re done using them and leave them inactive instead of releasing them.
Customers save incredible money when MSPs stop them from paying for services they never use. When MRR is generated from ancillary services, an MSP keeps 100% of the profit but must calculate the fully loaded load to calculate the total cost. Still, revenues will far exceed subscription commissions. ThThemost wants to focus on is cus isomer fees for ongoing support services.
After the subscription launch, these services will include day zero transition support, a user support program, QoS monitoring and management tool for network and cloud services, and capacity management.
There is a danger of remaining completely reactive when executing a support agreement. The system warns you, and you determine what to do, and then fixes the problem. But what if there are no problems?
There is a danger of remaining reactive in execution. The problem with the lack of service events is that the customer never sees the MSP. The problem arises at the time of renewal when a customer asks why they should bother to renew.
So MSPs must be proactive and predictive, anticipating and working on problems before they happen. When reporting activities to a customer, the MSP becomes visible.
Continue. Offer new ideas because requirements, projects, initiatives, users, and applications need the system to adapt. Talk to users to understand their experiences with the existing systems and get new ideas to serve each customer better.
The ability to renew support agreements and encourage the continuation of MRR depends on remaining highly visible. Do more frequent reports, hold evaluation meetings, or convert them from phone to video.
Make a plan to manage each account more productively. Maintain a keep-in-touch culture and discipline by requiring each account team to report regularly on their latest contacts.
Keep improving their environment, and the MSP will be able to enjoy more MRR for many years to come.
