Leave It Up to the Experts
As proven by the closure of typewriter company Smith Corona in the late 1990s and the closure of many a buggy whip company in the 1890s due to railroads, sometimes businesses have to let go of old ideas as well as control. It isn't always easy, but in many cases not ceding control of certain aspects of a business when one is overextended or outmatched by competitors or market shifts can mean the end.
The main benefit that MSPs provide to SMB clients is that if the SMB client sells vintage typewriters or horse-drawn carriages for downtown excursions, they can concentrate on those key strategies and put their horses in play -- they can leave it up to someone else to solve their computer problems.
The same can be true for MSPs who might be geniuses in the IT space and might be dynamos at implementations but may be overextended with client service maintenance as well as keeping up with third-party vendors and partners and watching their own bottom line. As this MSPtv video points out, MSPs can close the gap by relinquishing control of the more automated and tedious and recurring functions, such as back-office processing.
By either bringing in a partner to handle payroll processing or back-office accounting or off-site data storage, an IT firm specializing in, say, website development for typewriting horse vacation packages can focus on that very serious niche.
The bottom line is that by letting go of your control or your apprehensiveness you can regain control later or learn to know the difference between your strengths and operational weaknesses.
Posted by Jabulani Leffall on September 12, 2011