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SCALING FOR S

UCCESS:

The MSP Guide

to Operational

Efficiency

https://www.continuum.net/

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Scaling for Success: The MSP Guide to Operational Efficiency

www.continuum.net

2017 Continuum Managed Services

Notice of RightsAll Rights Reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permissionfrom the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For information and permissions please contact: [email protected]

Continuum Managed Services31st Floor, Keystone Building, 99 High Street, Boston, MA 02110

Written ByLane Smith, Senior Director, Partner DevelopmentJoseph Tavano, Senior Content Marketing Manager

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ForewordNo two Managed Services Providers (MSPs) are alike, and for that reason there is no single path to success that will guarantee sustainable growth. However, the factors that prevent MSPs from growing share commonalities and trends that can affect us all.

Todays managed IT services landscape is vastly different than it used to be. As technology, best practices and industry trends have evolved, so too have the challenges, goals and opportunities that service providers find themselves facing on a daily basis.

Small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have grown to demand a complete and comprehensive portfolio of solutions from todays MSPsincluding monitoring, backup and disaster recovery (BDR), user support, and moreall of which must be delivered with impeccable customer service, proper security and at the right price point.

In 2014, we published an ebook entitled The Definitive Guide to Managed IT Services. It was designed to educate service providers and demonstrate the paradigm shift in this market that allowed for unprecedented access to software-based solutions and human resources, creating new paths to profitable and scalable MSP growth. The piece was a valuable asset to thousands of providers looking to navigate this new era of service deliverybut as both the industry and Continuums IT management platform continued to evolve, we set out to author a new resource designed to help you take your business even farther forward.

To that end, weve designed this ebook for YOUa successful MSP that no longer needs a foot in the door, but rather a way forward to add new customers without having to worry about employee bandwidth issues, improve onboarding and customer satisfaction and drive better margins with your clients and contracts.

Much like your business, Continuum isnt new to this space. Weve just recently celebrated our five-year anniversary, and currently work with more than 5,800 MSP partners. Were proud of all that weve accomplished as we continue to look aheadand our growth only exists due to the success and expansion of sales and service providers like you who drive this channel.

No matter the size or scope of your operation, growing MSP practices are facing real and tangible challenges at every turn. As this market continues to evolve, the greatest opportunity to find success and achieve long-term growth and profitability can often come down to the partnerships that you make. We believe that a partnership with Continuum is the optimal way to deliver the best possible services and software to your clients while achieving true sustainable growth and profitability.

Inside, youll find some of the business issues MSPs like you are facing with respect to growthsome of which you may already be experiencing. Whether it involves labor costs, technology, or service delivery issues, this eBook is built to help you take the next step forward and move past these blockers and growth inhibitors.Take a look inside, as we hope that the path forward in your growth and profitability goals becomes crystal clear afterwards.

To Your Success,

Michael George, CEO, Continuum

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IntroductionManaged IT services have undergone significant change and evolution in a very short time. Service providers today are capable of managing a greater numberand varietyof endpoints than ever before, and continued advancements in cloud technologies have brought Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based platforms to the forefront of service delivery.

Much has likely changed in your own business since you first started using your current IT management platform. Youve had your own successes and challenges, have overcome some of the initial growing pains of a 24x7 uptime-driven model, and have developed a solid customer base as youve adopted the necessary solutions and technologies required to deliver a great outsourced service to clients.

You also know that if theres one constant in this space, its changeand this change presents a significant opportunity in the market to expand.

To capitalize upon this opportunity, youll need to be sure your own organization is prepared to face the challenges that exist when growing your business.

Consider the following questions: How do you hire to meet current demand? How do you prepare to add endpoints? Can you maintain enough positive cash flow to ramp up operations to expand and grow? What happens if you cant meet your SLAs? Do you have the right skillsets in place? Can you meet the compliance requirements of new clients? Is your platform adequately secure? Does your technology actually make work easier?


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Additionally, there are many industry factors currently affecting the SMB channel:

Competition will increase in the next year, and pricing pressure will occur due to new entrants into the MSP space.

Account retention will continue to be high for the service providers that achieve vCIO status with their clients.

Many MSPs will develop deep industry vertical expertise to differentiate and grow.

MSP services will extend beyond the network to a broader technology view, incorporating areas such as Internet of Things (IoT), cloud services, mobility and voice/video.

Expertise and client engagement will shift from technical support to high-value activities such as technology planning and strategy.

Sales and business development capabilities will be at a premium as MSPs will struggle with organic growth.

Third-party service providers will become more prevalent, whether it is for core managed services offerings or cloud and related technologies. These are just a few of the many questions that need to be answered and issues that need to be considered in 2017. Youve probably asked them yourself, but maybe the answers have felt more like concessions rather than solutions. This eBook would like to change that, and show you a different way to reach your business goals.

So how is it possible? How does an MSP get from here to there? How does one remove the barriers to growth that exist?

From our years of experience working with thousands of MSPs, weve found that many share a few distinct difficulties when seeking to take their businesses to new heightsand our fully-managed model is the solution. This eBook is designed to help you quickly and easily identify the business issues that resonate most with your business, and explore the root cause of these issues to determine how best to move beyond them.

This eBook will walk you through these issues and challenges, and outline the ways in which Continuums IT management platform can help alleviate these pressures as you continue to move your business forward. Regardless of your plans and trajectory for 2017, this eBooks underlying value and theme remain the same: the most successful MSPs are those that regularly re-evaluate their offerings, partnerships and their industry in order to deliver the highest-value, smartest and most profitable services possible to their clients.

No matter your path through this eBook, keep an eye out for ways you can benefit from a smarter, more profitable way to deliver your services, and know that when youre ready to talk, were ready to listen.


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While no two MSPs are exactly alike, weve identified that service providers looking to take their business to the next level often face one (or more) of these three challenges.

Click on the issue that best aligns with what your organization is facing to discover how you can overcome these growth barriers and scale to new heights!


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My technology is much too noisy,

which amounts to costlier, inefficient

service delivery.


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Traditional MSP models produce a lot of data. Alerts and tickets hit technicians plates like a never-ending stream, but so much of it is just noiseirrelevant or unusable data thats produced as part of the day-to-day functions and processes that MSPs are responsible for.

For example, imagine an issue with an Microsoft Exchange server. There could be multiple reasons why the issue is occurring, and a traditional remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform is creating tickets for each of them. Its the equivalent of diagnosing only symptoms, rather than understanding the root cause of the problem. So instead of the RMM platform relaying the information needed to solve the problem, technicians must sift through five or six tickets, one by one, to hypothesize the best course of action until the root cause is discovered.

As MSPs take on more and more clients, they end up drowning in data, yet are starved for information, and waste their staffs time (an expensive cost) parsing the tickets that matter from those that do not. This process results in higher labor costs year over year and a vast misuse of skill in talented techs that are capable of much more than just sifting through data.The result is that service delivery is slower, costlier and increasingly inefficient as MSP operations scale, and the only solution is to hire more staff to perform the same ineffective task just to meet demand. This stunts growth and cuts into margins that would otherwise be higher, and its easy to hit a wall where adding new clients may not be financially viable due

to operational inefficiency from a noisy IT platform. And as an MSP business grows, it only becomes more difficult to service new and larger clients. Naturally, the business owner wants to go after the big fish in the market, but if the solution stack in place is too noisy and inefficient, the MSP wont be able to consistently provide the same level of service needed to keep those clients happy.

Smarter Tools to Cut Through the NoiseThe Continuum NOC is designed to make MSP operations as efficient and profitable as possible, but the Continuum IT Management Platform is much more than a NOC. There are numerous technologies in place across every product designed to maximize MSP productivity and increase the ROI of the platform by cutting through the noise to deliver MSPs only the information they need. Through smarter, proprietary technology that can be trusted to do the job, Continuum MSPs are able to support more client endpoints than the traditional MSP, which amounts to a lower total cost of ownership for the platform and a more efficient and profitable organization.

Lets explore some of the ways the Continuum platform uses smarter technology to optimize MSP performance.


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IntelliMonContinuums proprietary alerting system is designed from the ground up to streamline and simplify the process of remote monitoring and management. IntelliMon works with the same logic and understanding of alerts, events and tickets that a seasoned senior technician does. It groups and consolidates alerts into intelligent tickets that are actionable and usable, saving countless hours that would have otherwise been spent parsing through data.

Its always up to date using NOC-aggregated data, which means that MSPs are installing agents configured with alerts comprised of the totality of the Continuum NOCs experience. As soon as IntelliMon is installed, it begins scanning the machine for issues, and will begin preparing alerts for the MSP without having to set up initial scripting or alerting rules. No surprises hereif weve seen it, our agentand Continuum MSP partnersare prepared for it.

For example: when MSP As client has an issue and we fix it, IntelliMon will remember the nature of that issue. So, when MSP Bs client has the same issue, IntelliMon already knows the fix, and the Continuum NOC can automatically take care of it for you.

This type of automationbacked by human decision-making and irreplaceable experienceis what makes IntelliMon one of the strongest tools in a Continuum MSPs arsenal. The result is that the NOC is enabled to fix issues faster because IntelliMon has drastically cut down the time spent identifying real issues, and MSPs can be notified more efficiently.

Hover over the icon to interact with the diagram.


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Tru-VerifyBackup and disaster recovery is an integral part of the managed IT services platform, but with it comes its own staffing challenges. Backup verification is one of the most labor-intensive aspects of providing BDR to clients, and when backups failand they will, regardless of the platformit can be a long, protracted process to investigate the issue and restore the clients system to proper functionality. This process causes the total cost of the BDR platform to soar and diminishes the efficiency of an MSP organization.

Tru-VerifyContinuums proprietary backup verification system that comes standard with the Continuity247 BDR platformprovides more than just a snapshot of backup success or failure. Using video verification, it provides greater context into the backup process to actually see where backups go wrong. This process allows the NOC to pinpoint the issue, allowing it to resolve the issue and provide confirmation to the MSP before any action is required. The result is that Tru-Verify provides backup verification insight like no other BDR platform, cutting down issue resolution time and allowing for faster and more efficient service delivery.

Patch SupportPatch management and support is a hallmark of managed IT services, so its important that this aspect of an MSPs business is operating as efficiently as possible. It can be time-intensive to research and test

all patches before rolling them out to client endpoints, but if this step is skipped, it can cause issues across multiple client sites.

The Continuum platform cuts through these issues to provide an efficient answer to patch support. The NOC extensively and comprehensively researches and tests every Microsoft security patch rollup, whitelisting or blacklisting as needed to minimize risk and ensure MSPs are confident when pushing out patches to their clients.

In addition, why waste office hours rolling out patchesor pay for techs to work after hours, nights or weekendswhen that time can be spent more productively? Continuums NOC provides off-hours maintenance for tasks like patch support, so endpoints can be updated and up-to-date for the next business day.

This aspect of using a highly-skilled, 24x7x365 technical team like the NOC cannot be understated, and allows for an MSP business to be productive around the clock. Combined with smarter technology and processes all designed to make MSPs more efficient at their business, the Continuum platform is designed to cut through the clutter of traditional, noisy MSP models for a better solution that promotes growth and keeps the total cost of ownership low.


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My staff cant support additional

new clients and I cant find or afford

qualified talent.


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We have found that this is one of the more common challenges that MSPs face, at any organizational size. After years and years of growth, aspects of operational efficiency that might have been overlooked can crystallize into glaring problems that affect productivity and profitability.

In a perfect world, with a healthy lead funnel and an active sales team, scaling shouldnt be much of an issue. However, on the operational side of the house, scaling presents a host of issues that can be very real challenges to growth. Capacity planning is particularly difficult in this industry, as client requirements can change at a moments noticeor a 100+ user opportunity may fall right into your lap without warning; in both cases, success depends on your ability to provide immediate and high-quality support without missing a beat.

The X+1 ProblemYou can think of this as an X+1 scenarioif your current staff is capable of handling X amount of work, then as soon as a new client, project or problem appears youll need to hire additional resourcesa +1, if you will to support it. Each of these +1s is an investment in time, training and onboarding, salary, benefits, infrastructure and more; all of which can cut into your profit potential and slow your operational efficiency.

This means that, in reality, there are only small windows of time where your organization may be reaching its full potentialthose moments where capacity is truly met and the organization is running

smoothly, right before youre forced to hire additional staff and begin the process again.

An opposite scenario can be equally problematic. If you were to suddenly lose a large client, or take on an ad-hoc project that requires one or two months worth of work but then ends, you may find yourself being temporarily overstaffed and needing to bring in new business to balance things out.

Under the traditional MSP model, operational growth ends up looking like a staircase rather than a gradual curvecomplete with steep budgetary and resource demands that can be difficult to forecast.

When adding new clients, upfront costs immediately increase due to the cost of hiring new techs to service new endpoints. Its more than just wages or salary; adding new techs requires an investment in technology and infrastructure as wellnot to mention benefits, training and onboarding. Finding the right applicants to hire with the correct set of skills and qualifications only compounds the difficulty.

Typically, MSPs are forced to absorb these upfront costs in order to reach maximum profitability over time with a client. This is where the staircase levels off into a mild incline. Profitability increases, costs vastly diminish, and absorbed costs are recouped. However, the cycle begins again when adding another new client; a new stair begins with another steep increase in spend.


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This model is less predictable to forecast in a budget, due to a few obvious challenges when it comes to forecasting:

1. Spending/COG

2. Financial disadvantage from upfront costs

3. Increased risk from unexpected issues

4. Difficulty adding clients

Spending and cost-of-goods are entirely dependent upon the size of a new prospect (and limited to the costs the MSP can absorb). In short: shouldering costs is risky. It puts the MSP at a financial disadvantage, which inhibits the ability to sustain any unexpected issues and add additional clients.

The Staffing and Scalability DilemmaIt may seem counter-intuitive at first, but a hire-as-you-grow mentality can actually put a damper on your efficiency and growth rate. In a traditional MSP model, business owners are forced to spend extra cash up front, and attempt to win it back (and exceed its value) over time with recurring revenue. And this model assumes that everything goes according to plan.

This staircase approach is risky at best, and is limited by an MSPs ability to absorb these upfront costs in order to win new contracts. Such an approach can put a business at a financial disadvantage, and makes it exponentially more difficult to handle any unexpected issues or problems while trying to continually acquire new customers.

8 am

6 pm

SUN WEDTUESMON THURS FRI SAT

Fixed Payroll & Capacity


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Thus, a dilemma ensues: MSPs are forced to adopt one of two approaches: overstaff the business to guarantee youll be able to support spikes in service requests and acquire new clients quickly, or understaff it to maintain a lean operation and maximize profits while running the risk of missing out on new deals or losing existing business if customer support suffers. Neither is an ideal scenario.

Transform Growth into a RampFortunately, theres a third optionand its quite simple, though it challenges much of the traditional thinking and resistance around labor outsourcing. In the same way that cloud computing allows businesses to add or remove resources and capacity at the click of a mouse, a growing labor arbitrage phenomenon is granting service providers unprecedented access to technical and human resources as well. The most dramatic and effective means of eliminating the uncertainties surrounding workforce management is to leverage a trusted and reliable third party who has the means to scale human resource capacity up or down at a moments notice.

In short, leveraging a third-party, fully-managed network operations center can transform your growth trajectory from a rigid staircase into a healthy and consistent ramp. Using this resource, MSPs are able to streamline the efficiency of their internal operations with Continuums Network Operations Center.

T I M E

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN


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Using Continuums fully-managed platform, MSPs have access to our NOC, which allows operational growth to resemble a ramp. As a Continuum MSP partner acquires more clients and subsequently more endpoints, the support theyre receiving from our NOC technicians scales as wellat a rate that accurately meets the needs of service delivery requirements, and without any of the costs associated with infrastructure, technology, training, benefits, etc. tied to an in-house staff.

So, MSPs who utilize the Continuum NOC are never investing in or paying for unutilized or unproductive laborthey can scale it up or down as needed to meet SLAs, and multiple service levels allow MSPs to decide exactly how theyd like to leverage the NOC on a per-site basis. And, the total cost of ownership over time is far less than hiring to scale.

Furthermore, making the switch to the Continuum NOC is not just about managing your employees time and capacity. Overall, MSPs do not see direct profit from the tasks that would be characterized as routine, recurring or mundane. These lower-level tasks are part of most basic service packages and are not significant drivers of revenue or profit, regardless of how frequently theyre taking place. No matter how many or how few need to be performed for a client, the MSP does not see any profitable returns for performing these tasks; theyre simply what need to be done. Many service providers may find that their staff spends so much time managing an RMM tool or

conducting password resets for users that they may actually be missing out on potential additional revenue opportunities or project work.

At the same time, these tasks are often the crux of an MSPs business, and one of the most valuable components theyre providing to clients on a daily basis. Ensuring this aspect of service delivery operates as steadily, continuously and efficiently as possibleand continuously operating around the clockall lends itself to delivering effective customer service.

This dynamic creates an inverse correlation between intensive labor and utility. MSPs are required to staff up their operations with techs to take on the demands of servicing large, profitable clients with many endpoints, but those techs can never spend their time on additional projects that could generate additional revenue; they are entirely devoted to maintenance and upkeep. And if, from a budgetary perspective, an MSP is not able to take on the upfront costs of adding new hires to their staff to meet incoming demand of endpoints, then that MSP will lose out on opportunities that could further business growth.

The Continuum model allows MSPs to take on clients of any size, because staffing and labor costs are scalable and proportional to the total amount of endpoints that MSP is required to service. Continuums NOC infrastructure is designed for efficient scalability, with technology and training rolled into the overall price.


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Good technicians are problem solvers. We have some folks who want to take on all of the IT issues and resolve everything themselves, but our mantra is to push everything to Continuum and the NOC give them an opportunity to solve it remotely, so that our team can focus on things that cant be done from a distance. Not only does it help us establish good expectations with our customers, but it helps us utilize our own resources as effectively as possible.

Jeff Dotzler Director of GFConsulting Group Gordon Flesch Company

Utilizing the Continuum NOC is neither a get-rich-quick scheme nor or a simple cost-cutting effortespecially in todays business landscape where costly practices like 24x7x365 monitoring and uptime are quickly becoming the level of service your clients expect and demand.

Instead, this new notion of outsourcing is one that allows MSPs to offload much of the day-to-day maintenance and routine work that their in-house staff is currently stuck managing, freeing them to focus on client relationships and business development. Functions like monitoring, ticketing, scripting, patch management and othersalthough criticalcan take a significant amount of time away from level I and II technicians who would be better-utilized in other aspects of the business.

Meanwhile, MSP staff are not made redundant by a NOC. On the contrary, MSP hires are able to apply their specific skills more efficientlyand more profitably. Operationally, staff are able to manage and work on advanced projects that add value to clients and revenue for MSPs. Some are also able to move into technical advisory rolessuch as a virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) thats embedded into a client organization at a critical levelto provide the guidance, experience and strategy that are paramount to a successful managed services relationship. The end result is that MSP staff are able to make existing clients more valuable and profitable, allow new clients to ramp up faster, and generate larger monthly recurring revenue across the business.


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Im not sure how to organize my team if I

partner with a third-party NOC.


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This is one of the most common concerns when considering using a NOC to make MSP technical operations more efficient. In theory, it all sounds great; the NOC can handle the daily, routine work inherent to managed IT services, and your team can go after more strategic projects, advisory roles, etc., all in service of a lower total cost of ownership, higher monthly recurring revenue and a faster cadence for adding new clients.

But this is all theoretical until it is put into practice, and the reality is that MSP employees have been executing their roles under the status quo; terms such as optimizing efficiency and streamlining operations can bring confusion, fear, and doubt into an organization. No one wants to be laid off due to their employer outsourcing or implementing new processes, and this fear can lead to resistance and difficulty when seeking buy-in among staff when its time to use a NOC.

In order to make the transition a success and improve efficiency as much as possible, MSP staff must understand what is going to happen to their professional roles and responsibilities at the organization when their company decides to make the switch to fully-managed IT services. To that end, its the responsibility of the MSP to explain the transition process to their staff and clearly define their roles within the organization.

A New ParadigmSwitching an IT management platform is no trivial thing. Lifting out the old system means leaving behind

older modalities, which leads to changes that extend through an entire MSP organization. Deciding to adopt the Continuum platform and to utilize the Continuum NOC, for instance, requires that MSPs think about how their workforce is currently deployed. To get the most out of the new model requires a new way of thinking about how MSPs can use their staff. The result here is not job cuts, but rather a realignment of employees based on experience and skillsets.

In essence, switching to the fully-managed model means that an MSP organization is making a fundamental shift from a technical organization that administers IT services, to a service organization that meets the IT needs of clients through technology. With a NOC partnership in place to handle the day-to-day technical tasks, an MSPs employees are freed up to add more value to the businessbut they will need direction. Its important for each member of the team to understand their job clearly, what they are responsible for on a day-to-day basis, and what hierarchy of the organization looks like, so they can be as efficient as possible and understand how to succeed in their role. Individual success in the workplace rolls up to operational success, which rolls up to business success, which means a more profitable business.

Have a look at this sample organization, which details the positions current staff can fill under this new paradigm and how staff can be redeployed.

There are always hard and soft costs associated with these solutions, and the NOC really absorbs those soft costs by providing day-to-day monitoring, troubleshooting and support for our clients backups. We have a senior level engineeran expensive resourcewho was spending all of his time dealing with BDR. Thanks to Continuums NOC, hes been able to save up to twenty hours a week and redirect it toward project work and higher-value tasks.

Nathan Eisner Chief Operations OfficerSophicity


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Note that this is a sample representation of how staff can be redeployed using the Continuum model, but it is not an analog to every MSP business. Depending on the size of the MSP, there may be multiple staff members performing these responsibilities.

SERVICES MANAGER

DISPATCH TECH SERVICE DELIVERY TEAM

NOC

DESKSIDE SUPPORT PROJECTS ONBOARDING

Q/A ANALYSIS SALES ENGINEER ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE ACCOUNT MANAGER

vCIO SALES MANAGER

HELP DESK


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In this model, instead of technicians who manage, investigate and resolve tickets on a per-client basis, the NOC is installed to manage these duties. They will communicate with your organization via one or more Dispatch Technicians who manage the day-to-day relationship with the Continuum NOC, receive reports on the clients that the NOC services, and traffic the flow of escalated issues from the NOC to the MSPs Service Delivery team.

The Service Delivery team is your organizations crack-shot technical team; theyre responsible for a number of special tasks that solve the issues no one else can, they provide greater value to your existing accounts through special projects, and they onboard new clients with maximum efficiency.

What the Service Delivery team does not do is replicate the work that the NOC performs. Instead, they resolve the occasional larger escalation that may arise which requires an onsite presence at a client site. The Service Delivery team can coordinate and direct the NOC (via Dispatch Technicians) as needed to solve level II, level III and even level IV issues. This team can do this across multiple clients, instead of having to focus on issue resolution one client at a time. This exponential increase in efficiency is the true value of the Continuum NOC, and why MSPs are able to add and retain more clients over time.

The Service Delivery team is also responsible for executing valuable, revenue-generating projects for clients to promote more efficient service and higher

monthly recurring revenue. Again, they are able to coordinate with the Continuum NOC to execute ad-hoc, special project work (Exchange Server migrations, for example) and can manage the project work performed at multiple sites instead of getting too deep in the weeds and driving down their efficiency.

Service Delivery is also responsible for overseeing the technical aspects of onboarding new clients, including the installs of agents and setup of appliances, and coordinating with the NOC to ensure that workis being carried out smoothly and escalations are being resolved.

The Dispatch Technician team and the Service Delivery Team report to a Service Delivery Manager, who oversees these operations and acts as the point of contact between the technical team and C-level executives at the MSP organization. The Service Delivery Manager also oversees a team of vCIOs, who are specialized IT advisors that operate as internal members of high-value client businesses. Instead of merely acting as trusted advisors, who only see the client from the outside looking in, vCIOs oversee smaller teams that analyze client networks and systems to find opportunities to improve client operations, and then sell upgraded services to meet those client goals. The vCIO team typically consists of a Q/A engineer to analyze client networks, a sales engineer to oversee the implementation of new MSP services, and the vCIO acting in an IT advisory role at the top level of a client organization.

Continuum has the capabilities so I dont even need to think about scalability we can go out and land 300 or 400 seat accounts next week and once weve on-boarded them, I know and trust that Continuum has it covered.

Jeff Dotzler Director of GFConsulting GroupGordon Flesch Company


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While a vCIO partnership is lucrative for MSPs, not all clients will require that attention, which is why it will be possible to redeploy some staff to act as Account Executives and Account Managers. As part of the sales organization, they will oversee the day-to-day relationship with the client, with the difference between the two being that Account Executives will oversee the larger accounts and typically have fewer on their plate, while Account Managers oversee the day to day relationship of many clients. Both will discuss the requirements and goals the client is facing, and seek to find opportunities to cross-sell and upsell those clients. Additionally, they will be responsible for communicating with the client during escalations and for putting out fires, should there be any issues or anomalies that arise. Account Executives and Account Managers report to a Sales Manager, who is responsible for closing new accounts. In addition, Account Managers and Account Executives also work with the vCIOs to manage many of the day-to-day issues on high-value accounts so that vCIOs can handle the strategic components of the clients business.

Remember, this sort of redeployment of staff is neither arbitrary nor only for operational productivity or efficiency. In adding the Continuum NOC and

redeploying your staff, your team will be in a position to generate more revenue for the business, inherently making their roles and responsibilities that much more valuable to the success of the organization. Plus, staff is now aligned to ensure client retention is a major focus, instead of riding a wave of issues and tickets. So instead of feeling the pressure to drive revenue through costly new-client acquisitions, MSPs have the advantage of generating more revenue from existing clients and strategically going after only the new accounts that will be the best fit and the most profitable.

Its a far cry from fears of staff redundancy; utilizing the Continuum platform allows an MSP to make their team more efficient and more valuable.

Its comforting to me as the owner of an MSP to know that Continuum can provide a service that will help us cope with the peaks and troughs of demand.

Mark Williams CEOPensar


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Whether you have explored one or all of the areas of this ebook, the difference between standard MSP solutions and the Continuum model should be clear; theres a better, more efficient, and more profitable way to offer managed IT services, and the potential for MSP growth is both compounded and simplified through using the Continuum IT management platform to the fullest extent.

The Continuum IT management platform was built from the ground up to be an engine for growth for the managed IT services provider. Its more than just technology; its a new way of looking at your entire operation. Continuums fully-managed model allows you to better allocate your skilled, experienced workforce to take on greater responsibility while leveraging our smart solutions and capable technical personnel to absorb the myriad tasks that can bog down your staff. And of course, because resources can be scaled at the NOC to take on clients of any size, theres no limit to the operational feasibility of a Continuum MSP.

Across all Continuum products, the advantages that Continuum provides can be categorized into four areas:

Fully-Managed Network Operations CenterContinuums IT management platform is built upon this principle of strategic smart-sourcing, in which MSPs leverage our NOC facility and technicians as the foundation on which to build their business higher. The Continuum-owned Network Operations Center enables MSPs to provide full 24x7x365 issue resolution. Continuum MSP partners have more than 700+ highly skilled and certified technicians who extend their workforces and absorb work, complete custom projects, and mitigate issues before they become real problems to help ensure MSPs can support the needs of any client or project.

The Continuum NOC keeps hiring costs fixed while offering a level of skill, training and experience that simply cannot be acquired through any in-house solution. Through years of experience in closing millions of tickets, a range of certifications and state-of-the-art infrastructure, the NOC is an unparalleled solution that can transform MSP operations into powerhouse service delivery organizations.

By absorbing day-to-day IT management and related tasks, our partners are able to redeploy their existing personnel as virtual chief information officers, technical sales engineers, advanced technicians with deep product knowledge or expertise, and any number of other roles. Whats more, Continuum enables service providers to put themselves on a path toward predictable, scalable growthknowing that with our technicians at your side, no deal is too

The Continuum D i f f e r e n c e


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complex, too large or too difficult to accommodate.Utilizing the Continuum NOC is a solution for growth and an answer to greater profitability and a lower total cost of ownership for a managed IT services platform.

Smarter ToolsContinuum technology is designed to enable MSPs to grow; therefore, when we develop new technology, it is in service of a more efficient and more profitable solution to industry challenges. In addition to IntelliMon, our intelligent alert monitoring system, and Tru-Verify, our video backup verification technology, there are a number of efficient systems in place across the Continuum platform.

With regard to service delivery, the Continuum Help Desk can provide up to 24x7x365 coverage to clients without the labor costs, maintenance and overhead required to keep a comparable in-house operation functioning at maximum capacity. Setting up an in-house help desk, replete with the necessary skillsets, experience and processes to meet client SLAs, is just too cost prohibitive. In addition, MSPs no longer need to spend time relaying issues across systems and between third-party vendors that are difficult to coordinate; the Continuum Help Desk seamlessly integrates with the Continuum NOC, allowing for speedy and direct communication and escalation of issues.

Another way to capitalize on the Continuum platform to maximize operational efficiency is to use Tech Advantage, Continuums answer to custom project work that allows partners to select from a long list of profitable projects for the NOC to complete. With Tech Advantage, MSPs are able to compete for and win bigger projects and take on bigger clients.

Continuums SaaS-based portal allows you to remotely monitor, manage, back up and secure your clients IT environments from a single pane of glass.


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Examples of the 85+ Tech Advantage server, desktop and custom projects that the NOC can complete include Active Directory deployment, Exchange cross forest migration and VMware setup. These are all popular choices since these sort of projects can be a hassle to schedule after hours or on weekends, and also lead to increased labor costs and overtime pay.

Tech Advantage is also an optimal way to expand and round out an organizations technical skillset. No longer do MSPs need to hire for niche or outdated technology skills to maintain client systems; Tech Advantage allows for ad-hoc utilization of these services and more, so MSPs only pay for specific services as needed. And whats more, projects can be executed any timeincluding nights, weekends and holidaysadding to the utility and efficiency of operations.

Single Pane of GlassThe Continuum platform is unified through single-pane-of-glass management, and that idea extends throughout the entire partner relationship to offer efficiency, depth and breadth of IT management that simply cannot be found anywhere else.

Because we own our NOC, Help Desk and technology, Continuum partners enjoy the benefits of having all facets of their managed IT services relationship under one roof. Single simplified reporting, a single invoice for administrative efficiency and a single interface for all techs to work from are all benefits of this single pane of glass structure. Continuum partners dont waste time discussing issues with multiple

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vendors, either. With streamlined access to them, plus level I and II issue resolution for all our technology integration partners, there is truly only one place to turn for all IT management needs.

A True PartnershipAll too often, MSPs are conditioned to treat their IT management platform vendor (or vendors) as a software reseller who offers little to no support upon purchase.

On the other hand, Continuum MSP partners receive service thats unparalleled in the IT channel, and considered true partners from day one. Every aspect of the relationship is designed to empower the MSPat all levels of the organizationto achieve greater efficiency and growth. Just some of the benefits a Continuum partner receives include dedicated account management, technical training and educational materials to ramp up staff, technical documentation, and Navigate, Continuums annual user conference, which features a variety of opportunities for technical teams to meet, discuss, and learn more about how to get the most out of the Continuum platform.

There are plenty of benefits to being a Continuum partner on the sales side of the business as well, including white-labelled sales materials ranging from printed documents to full-scale videos, marketing support to help sell fully-managed IT services effectively.

In addition, month-to-month billing puts the decision-making power back into the MSPs hands, freeing partners from long contracts that are not to the MSPs advantage. This also means we earn our partners business every month, and were confident enough that our platform enables MSP success that our regional account and technical teams communicate with our partners every step of the way and ready to assist in any way needed.

Of course, theres only one place MSPs need to go to modify their account or troubleshoot anything because we own all of our core products. And, Continuum MSPs can rest assured that our technology integrations are an endorsement that we stand by, because each one is fully vetted.

Success in managed IT services can take many forms, and no two organizationsor their goalsare identical. However, without the right tools and partnerships, no business can move forward. The Continuum platform was designed to take your MSP business to next level, to evolve your operations into the most efficient and most profitable they can be. No matter your growth targets or the plan for the road ahead, a partnership with Continuum is the most strategic choice for success.

Our engineers and technicians love working with the Continuum platform, because they know there are several hundred folks that have their back; and by using the Help Desk, were able to stretch the knowledge of our own employees and personnel. Our technicians are tired of dealing with password resets and spyware issues thanks to Continuum, I can push them to say take on some of this more challenging work. I have more time to sit with them and really dig into a given problem.

Jason Gay Director of Managed ServicesG2 Technology Group


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We hope this eBook has addressed some of the issues you might be facing today as your MSP organization looks to continue growing in 2017.

If youre ready to move forward with a better way towards operational

efficiency, profitability and growth, here are a few ways to get started:

Call us at +1 866.223.7394 to talk to one of the members

of our expert partner development team.

Contact Us

Watch a demo to see for yourself all the benefits the Continuum IT management

platform has to offer.

Watch Your Demo

Request a free trial and experience the power of

Continuums IT management platform for yourself.

Request Your Trial

https://www.linkedin.com/company/continuum-managed-services-llchttp://it4msp.com/1P3bLkohttps://twitter.com/FollowContinuumhttps://page.continuum.net/company/contact-us-today?utm_campaign=pro&utm_content=rmm-na-contact-us&utm_medium=other&utm_source=rmm-na-ebook-scaling-successhttps://page.continuum.net/solutions/rmm-software/demo-remote-monitoring-and-management?utm_campaign=pro&utm_content-rmm-na-demo&utm_medium=other&utm_source=rmm-na-ebook-scaling-successhttps://page.continuum.net/solutions/rmm-software/trial-remote-monitoring-and-management-backup-and-disaster-recovery?utm_campaign=pro&utm_content-rmm-na-trial&utm_medium=other&utm_source=rmm-na-ebook-scaling-successhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/continuum-managed-services-llchttp://it4msp.com/1P3bLkohttps://twitter.com/FollowContinuum

About Continuum Managed IT Services

Continuum empowers managed IT service providers, giving them the platform, services, and processes they need to simplify IT management and deliver exceptional service to their small and medium-sized clients. Continuums vertically integrated service delivery model combines an unmatched SaaS-based technology suite with a world-class NOC and Help Desk, allowing them to not only remotely monitor, manage, back up and secure their clients IT environments from a single pane of glass, but scale profitably. Continuum employs more than 1,300 professionals worldwide and monitors more than 1 million endpoints for its 5,800 partners, including MSPs servicing more than 60,000 SMB customers and web hosting providers protecting more than 250,000 servers with Continuums R1Soft product line. The company established the Continuum Veterans Foundation, a nonprofit organization providing financial support to charities focused on helping veterans find jobs in IT. For more information, visit https://www.continuum.net/ or https://www.r1soft.com/ and follow on LinkedIn and Twitter @FollowContinuum.

https://www.continuum.net/

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