The latest version of MSPComplete from BitTitan will add more process automation, turnkey managed services and intellectual property protection. But what it really tries to do is grow recurring revenue streams and increase profitability for managed services providers (MSP).
Geeman Yip, the CEO of Kirkland, Wash.-based BitTitan, said in the channel landscape today there are many solution providers with no recurring revenue model in North America.
He calls this the IceBerg effect. Watch this CDN video interview of Geeman about the IceBerg effect.
The new MSPComplete has been redeveloped to bring a sustainable revenue model for MSPs. Geeman calls it “an out-of-the-box turnkey cloud franchise” with playbooks or runbooks that can help an MSP utilize staff for the right tasks. There are more than 100 of these playbooks available in the new MSPComplete including updates on assessment, onboarding, Migration Wiz, help desk and security.
Other upgrades include: Office 365 Suite, Microsoft FastTrack, Azure, EMS, Dropbox Business, Amazon, Box and Google G Suite. Solution providers can also create custom services and IP by adding tasks to an existing service or by building an entirely new service.
From an IP perspective, the new MSPComplete has automated process scripts that are just a click away. All these automated service processes generate reports for MSP leadership. “It provides visibility into your people and service delivery,” Geeman said.
One of the more common scenarios BitTitan tries to solve with this new version is when an employee goes on vacation and leaves the manager without knowing who is taking over for the employee. The reports enable the manager to develop a transition strategy.
It also allows an MSP to cost out tasks and see how long each one takes. “This maps out the costs associated with the people performing these tasks. You can now see how much it costs to deliver a service,” Geeman said.
One of the key new features of the updated MSPComplete is IP protection. According to Geeman, most of the time the IP is retained in the heads of the employees. If there is some sophistication, the IP might be jotted down in a Word document somewhere. “This is where MSPComplete comes in and creates value. There is revenue attached to your IP and profit,” Geeman said. The new MSPComplete can standardize and secure IP at a granular level, eliminating the loss of valuable best-practice knowledge resulting from employee turnover.
Former channel partner chief executive at New Signature Chris Hertz, said his company always had unique IP in terms of how they delivered solutions and services.
“IP is with people and sometimes those people walk out the door or retire. There is no automation there and as a solution provider you need to capture that, monetize it, and make it scale. The new MSPComplete helps MSPs do this vice nicely,” he said.
Hertz left New Signature, a CDN Top 100 Solution Provider, late in 2016 to become a strategic adviser to BitTitan.
Gartner forecasts through 2021 that cost savings from automation will range between two and five per cent; conversely, those not leveraging automation can expect to see a massive 25 per cent drop in customer retention.
Hertz added, any organization needs to be more efficient and find faster resolutions to problems no matter how big or small the staff size is. When Hertz ran New Signature this was one of his biggest fears; a screw up on standard operating procedure. “You can be perfect for 364 days out of the year and screw up once and that’s what the customer will remember. The customer always has a feel for how long it takes to solve an issue and can compare it in their heads. They can tell if one is faster than the other and will begin to ask questions about it or start to demand to work with the faster person,” he said.
Geeman has been preaching to solution providers over the past two years to turn themselves into a modern MSP and have a cloud-first approach. What’s becoming apparent in the market is that the IT department are too changing, he says, and are now buying and deploying technology with an eye towards costs savings for maintenance as well as services.
By turning into a modern MSP, Geeman said they would be able to deliver technology in an invisible way to the customer.
“They would be solving problems without anyone seeing it,” he added.
MSPComplete has per-user subscription pricing and comes with MigrationWiz, a multi-workload migration tool.
