Managed services solutions provider Continuum and operational consultancy Growth Achievement Partners (GAP) have entered into a strategic partnership to establish a new Managed Services Business Model for office technology dealerships.
According to the companies, the model provides a blueprint for MSPs, helping them to capitalize on off-site management, hardware as a service (HaaS), and cloud-based service trends.
“This transition will help deliver recurring revenues and customer growth to dealers through an expanded solutions and network services offering, resulting in accelerated financial performance,” state the companies in a joint press release submitted to ChannelPro-SMB.
“Managed services deployments offer incredible revenue growth profit potential for dealers, and such architectures are truly the future of a converged office technology marketplace,” says Continuum CEO Michael George. “This new initiative with GAP provides technology, services, and guidance that dealers need to penetrate the managed services opportunities within their existing customer base and capture new accounts by offering well-differentiated services within the office technology marketplace.”
According to GAP, it has joined forces with Continuum to leverage the managed services company’s expertise, which complements its own experience in strategy, operations, sales, and marketing.
“The office technology market is in transition, and dealers who accelerate through the turn will thrive,” says GAP’s principal Chris Ryne. “Our model provides benchmarks similar to the traditional industry model that has been the standard for highly successful dealers.”
“We partnered with Continuum to combine their operational business analytics with our own work to jointly assist dealers in taking advantage of this market opportunity,” adds another GAP principal, Mitch Morgan. “Continuum has a depth of experience no other provider can match, focused on high-margin, ongoing service level agreements and per-seat licensing.” †
Managed Services Model Metrics
The new Managed Services Model is designed to provide key metrics that dealers can follow to create a successful and sustainable managed services practice. These include:
- Revenue – The appropriate targets, mixes, and types, and how those should change over time.
- Contracts & Account Expansion – Seats under man≠agement, revenue per seat, and growth expectations via additional products and services.
- Activity and Pipeline – Sales cycle duration, pipeline metrics, and activity targets to achieve business model rev≠enue targets.
- Head Count – Productivity mea≠sures for sales and vCIO personnel, target head-count lev≠els based on seats managed and cus≠tomers under con≠tract, and the personnel mix between sales and operations.
- Compensation – Who to pay, how to pay, and when to pay, as well as target compensation levels as they relate to gross profit and revenue.
- Profitability – Target contribution level and opera≠tional levers to enhance performance.
The Managed Services Business Model strategy can be downloaded for closer review at www.continuum.net/businessmodel.
