CompTIA Research
Summary of “Managed Services Study”
Survey Information
In order to identify trends/discrepancies in the definition
of managed services, success and
challenge factors among MSPs, solutions to challenges and
opportunities for growth for MSPs,
CompTIA commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a research
study on the Managed Services
market. The research was conducted with current and potential
MSPs and managed services
end-users. Qualitative data was gathered through in-person
focus groups and online bulletin
boards and quantitative data was gathered through an online
survey. To qualify for the survey, a
respondent had to either be a member of a company that currently
provides or plans to provide
managed services in the next six months, be personally involved
in working with customers on
MSP decisions, recognize 25% or more of total revenue from
managed services, or be a member
of a company that outsources the design, ownership, or management
of IT services to an MSP,
and be a managed services decision-maker for their company.
Key Findings
Growth and specialization are likely in store for the industry, with 73 percent of MSPs reporting that their managed services business has become profitable. Most MSPs (74%) and end-users (68%) believe that managed services providers will become more specialized in their offerings in the next three years, and 94% of MSPs already differentiate themselves in some way. Nearly half (49%) report that their biggest obstacle is convincing potential adopters of ROI, and 33 percent report an inability to demonstrate true business value or ROI. For end-users, the biggest obstacles are security concerns (53%) lack of awareness of available services (52%) and uncertainty about ROI (52%).
Education is also key – nearly half of all MSPs (48%) agree that if their potential customer is more tech-savvy, then selling managed services is a much smoother process. It is also important to cultivate relationships – 66 percent of MSPs report that selling managed services is easier if the customer already has a business relationship with the provider. Unique/specialized offerings and already existing business relationships lead the list of reasons end-users select one MSP over another. Surprisingly, price is the least-often cited reason (7%). End-users are currently moderately satisfied with their MSPs, assigning them an average satisfaction rate of 5.1 out of 7. Service-level agreements are crucial to the way MSPs do business. The three elements that are sought most often in SLAs are response time (74%), data security and privacy (67%), and 24/7 support (65%). These elements are seen as “must haves” by many MSPs who were asked what words of wisdom they would give to other companies that are just starting out.
Conclusions
When marketing Managed Services, it will be important to “know your audience”—different elements of SLAs will be important to different types of companies. It is a good strategy to target a specific segment of the market and attempt to achieve “best-in-class” status. MSPs should utilize marketing tools, such as ROI calculators, when meeting with current and potential customers. It might be beneficial to target IT departments in smaller companies to educate them about what services are available, and provide them with case studies/success stories.
Complete reports are available to CompTIA corporate members via logging into CompTIA’s Members Only Area at http://members.comptia.org. The information contained throughout these studies is proprietary to CompTIA. No portion of these studies may be reproduced in any form without the expressed written permission of CompTIA. However, small segments of no more than one paragraph in length may be quoted if proper citation is made. For more information or if you’re not a member and would like to purchase the report, please contact research@comptia.org.
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