Getting untangled from a relationship can be time consuming, costly, and angst filled. That’s why it’s so important to choose wisely when it comes to a vendor partner and your MSP tool stack. You’re not just adopting their product or service; you’re banking on their commitment and expertise to help you optimize those solutions and grow.
Are you paying for tools you never—or barely—use? Do you have more than one tool that does the same thing? Are you overpaying for something? Is there a comparable tool that costs less than something you’re using? Are your contract terms lousy? Techs grumbling about inefficiencies? Are they able to use automation effectively? Are you pricing correctly?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you’re sabotaging your ability to drive higher profits.
It may be time to take a deep dive into what you’re paying for—and what you’re getting in return.
Visibility For Decision Making
One resource giving MSPs the visibility needed for decision making is Kaseya’s ProfitFuel. This consultative audit of your MSP tool stack provides hard, comparative data on costs, which some business owners say is helping them identify areas for savings and efficiency gains along with insight for appropriate pricing. Kaseya offers ProfitFuel as a complimentary service for both Kaseya and non-Kaseya MSPs.
“If any MSP is truly trying to run a business and not a hobby, ProfitFuel is a no-brainer,” says Chad Moore, CEO of Xonicwave, an MSP headquartered in San Diego, California. “It doesn’t cost anything, and you’ll know exactly where you stand. A lot of MSPs just accept what they’ve been paying and don’t go out shopping … Your profitability will grow over time because this [program] will make you more efficient.”
Javier Dugarte, vice president of sales and operations at Go Cloud, an MSP in the Miami, Florida, area, adds, “ProfitFuel can identify that most likely you’re not charging the right amount according to the market. It provides you that kind of intelligence.”
The Tools Sprawl Problem
MSPs are not only managing an increasing number of endpoints but they also have an average of 10–20 disparate tools in their stack from multiple vendors, with new solutions continually coming onto the market. “We were spending four hours, on average, per month to demo new products and find trends, and we were managing nine different vendors at times,” says Moore.
That added up to about nine hours a month just for vendor management and another four or five hours a month to demo tools.
For TekConcierge, an MSP in Dallas, Texas, they were going through a manual evaluation every time a tool came up for renewal “to see if there is something better than what we’re using today and to reduce costs,” says Aaron Garcia, director of operations at TekConcierge.
Make Smarter Decisions About Your MSP Tool Stack
Enter ProfitFuel, which “provides you with the visibility to make smarter decisions when it comes down to products,” says Dugarte. “ProfitFuel provided me with a better vision on … the analytics behind cost versus what the product can provide.”
After going through that process, Go Cloud moved from a best-in-class approach to Kaseya 365 Endpoint, a bundled and integrated solution for endpoint management, security, and backup. This move has resulted in a 73% cost reduction compared to purchasing the related products individually “and allowed me now to go out and create a more aggressive strategy for growth in the marketplace,” Dugarte says. The time savings for Go Cloud’s technicians have also been significant as “it frees them up to do other, bigger tasks.”
For Xonicwave, the ProfitFuel audit found a direct correlation to seven products Kaseya offered that Xonicwave was using in its MSP tool stack from other vendors. During the product demos, “we found there were several other tools that would help us that we weren’t currently using or were more efficient than an archaic method we were using,” Moore says.
Moore used these metrics for selecting Kaseya tools: Does the tool help its clients? Does it increase efficiency? And does it help save money? “The tool had to hit two out of three metrics,” he says. “On every tool, they hit two if not three out of three.”
In addition, he says, “Pricing was very, very attractive, and we thought it would not only make us more efficient but more profitable with future clients.’’
No Pain, No Gain
While a ProfitFuel audit is free, an MSP does have to put the time into the analysis process. That varies depending on how big your company is, the number of employees, and how many tools you have, Garcia says.
“It took weeks to vet out each of the products they wanted us to move over to,” he recalls. The process included demonstrations and talking to team members of each product. “We have about 40 employees and $8.5 million in revenue, so we don’t flippantly sign things. I had to take the time to make sure what we were moving to made sense for us and our clients.”
After several months of discussions and work, TekConcierge shifted its PSA to Kaseya Autotask, a huge undertaking, Garcia says. “The hard part is moving over—but I knew that going in. It helped us get better within our service delivery, for sure.”
Now that TekConcierge is using Autotask’s integrated billing feature, he knows they are billing clients correctly, “and that is an obvious time savings. Previously, we were doing it the old-school, manual way.”
TekConcierge is also using the KaseyaOne customer portal, which offers single sign-on and the ability to see all the modules they are using under the Kaseya umbrella, Garcia says. Although he was “skeptical about it and the widgets … I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the dashboard and widgets in Autotask.”
Overall, implementing the ProfitFuel recommendations has saved TekConcierge 32% in annual costs, Garcia says.
Shake The Tree
Whether you choose to use ProfitFuel or examine the costs of your MSP tool stack on your own, the exercise is a surefire way to boost profits. “Any MSP who doesn’t go through this free exercise is really a fool because they’re either not worried about what they’re spending or they’re so used to it, they become numb,” says Moore. “Sometimes, you’ve got to shake the tree a little bit.”
