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ConnectWise Helps VARs Morph to Managed Services Model in 2006
With Over 60 Percent of the SMB Market Interested in Outsourced Managed Services, the ConnectWise PSA Managed Services Platform Helps VARs Meet this Growing Need
TAMPA, Fl., Jan. 11 / PRNewswire/ -- ConnectWise, the maker of ConnectWise PSA, an end-to-end business management software for running IT Solutions companies, reports extraordinarily high interest by VARs in their Managed Services Platform product since its release in November, 2005.
While IT outsourcing has been a trend with large companies for most of this decade, many factors have converged to accelerate this solution among small and midsize businesses (SMBs). In fact, Gartner reports in a recent survey that nearly 60 percent of SMBs are now interested in managed services. Some of the factors that come into play are the increasing complexity of managing network security against spam, viruses, phishing and farming at the same time that SMB information systems are becoming mission-critical to business success. Other factors include the increasingly powerful and cost-effective managed services tools vendors are offering, the growing view of ‘software as a service’ that builds trust in hosted solutions, and the desire of many SMBs to have some predictability to their monthly IT expenses.
From the VAR perspective, there are also motivating factors accelerating this trend. First and foremost is the unavoidable fact that the margins in hardware and software sales have been squeezed such that it is no longer profitable to sustain a business from these revenues. Gartner reports that unless VARs transition to the new Managed Services model, at least 40 percent are at risk of “going belly up.” Another important factor is that SMBs have a great need for local strategic IT partners to help them build IT strategic plans and manage them, which local VARs are uniquely poised to do.
“IT Outsourcing is the future of IT Solutions Providers serving the SMB market, and many VARs are realizing that unless they jump on the bandwagon, they will be left in the dust,” says Arnie Bellini, President of ConnectWise PSA. “We anticipated this trend quite a while ago and responded by building a Managed Services Platform add-on to our PSA product that allows our clients to incorporate their MSP tools into our software. This enables them to manage many of their clients’ needs remotely, increasing service levels and decreasing costs. In addition, we at ConnectWise gather from and share best practices among our client partners, which allows them to be more successful at selling this new service. The end result is that our clients’ end users are thrilled and our clients look like heroes. That is a very strong position for the VARs.”
About the product: The ConnectWise Managed Services Platform allows ConnectWise client partners to extend the use of the end-to-end, PSA business management software through integration with managed services tools by Kaseya, N-able, Level Platforms and others, enabling VARs to become virtual IT departments as an outsourced offering to their SMB clients. Additional tools included in the solution allow these VARs to maintain the high level of service excellence they are able to achieve with ConnectWise PSA. In particular, the Executive Management reports, viewable through the built-in portal, permit their clients to monitor how many threats are successfully combated, which continually sells the value of managed service.
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