Managed services for the cloud in 2020 – Learnings so far & plan ahead

In an endeavor to stay competitive with agile markets, businesses have migrated to cloud environments. Not only has this positioned managed services as their leading sector of focus but it also produced a swaddle of opportunities to experiment with hybrid solutions. Henceforth, MSPs, wanting to unlatch maximum benefits have flocked the scene. Yet, deployments tend to fail while end clients are not able to seek the utmost advantage. 

Pacing ahead with the center of excellence portfolio curated around managed services, my stints at Henson Group have matured my stance while instilling a deeper sense of collaborating technology and management. Of course, these learnings didn’t come easy and it took me and my team a line-up of customers to acquire the cognizance. 

And when the service is expected to grab a whopping USD 53.8 billion by the end of 2022, there’s no looking back. 

Strengthened alliance amidst MSPs & SaaS entities

5% of surveyed MSPs confirmed up to 100 customers while 89% are confident of adding 10 new customers in the next 6 months. Given the backing of such stats and the impressive revenue generated by the sector, they have finally earned the long lost support from the SaaS vendors. Since partnerships in the previous decade have produced valuable results, SaaS companies will continue to utilize MSPs as influencers while impacting a wider market. And that reminds me of several MSPs trying to push a particular brand’s product to their customers. Just like a local store promoting particular brands from the front shelf. In fact, Cloud Technology Alliance’s report had predicted the trend back then wherein 26% of SaaS vendors were distributing services through MSPs. 

Entering 2020, there will be a lot of activity on the association between SaaS companies and the MSPs. 

Growing concerns over cloud security will grow further 

If the last decade was narrated by wider execution for innovation use cases, the next one surely has its priorities set in strengthening focus towards enterprise security. Ofocurse cloud security was always a concern and enterprises have been locking horns to discover an astute solution. However, an unpromising firewall and other security solutions available are just not enough. Given the number of clients accessing SaaS services and the irresistible temptation to expand businesses, MSPs simply can’t afford to let security threats propel. 

Digital transformation will drive the enterprise sentiment 

At Henson Group, most customers admit lack of cloud competency that compelled them to change their previous MSPs. And as per IDC, the dearth of upskilling leads to a 70% failure in digital transformation projects. In an endeavor to move on from primitive practices of managing IT infrastructures, businesses are considering MSPs for a lineup of services that don’t restrict to management only. Eventually, addressing to the soaring expectations from cloud MSPs, we are assisting enterprises across sectors with – 

• Cloud Infrastructure Selection – Researching, Planning, and Purchasing 
• Cloud Deployment – Moving on-premise systems to cloud or cloud to MS cloud 
• Operations – Complete SaaS management of routine operations and issue handling
• Cloud Maintenance – Handling Hardware / Software / Firmware & Security Updates

Smarter clouds – a better collaboration with AI & other emerging techs

Automation has grown explosively. Not just did it reduce manual workload drastically, but abbreviated costs and hence built smarter processes. Since the customer has woken up to the era of automation, their knowledge about the roles of AI has matured and so expects MSPs to do something more. Stacking on the art of capitalizing through predictive technology, automation in the cloud could be out to greater use for handling potential faults, take timely measures and cut down on the maintenance hassles big

time. 

Since everybody has access to somewhat similar infrastructure, using features in the cloud to shorten response times, improvise service performances will be the key differentiators. As more companies want to steer focus towards core business processes and take better care of their employees, MSPs have an exciting opportunity to explore. 

And finally, 

The way forward - The advent of consulting as a service 

When I started my career, everybody wanted to be known as an IT company. Fast forward today, consulting agency is the term all service providers want to identify themselves with. Given the rise in as-a-service technologies such as infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, software-as-a-service, etc. , MSPs should be working hard to perfect every process. So be it the assistance in contracting, cloud infrastructure development, migration or maintenance, newer opportunities are brimming on the horizon.