We all have our own interpretation of what the future of the office environment holds in a post-pandemic setting. While geography will continue to dictate the “normal” resumption of business, with the South and Midwest largely unchanged and the Northeast, West and major metropolitan cities still experiencing some degree of office disruption, one notion is difficult to refute. The door has been opened to hybrid work.
Like any trend with significant momentum, the work-from-home movement is here to stay. As it either garners steam or settles in as a niche operations MO, the opportunity for dealers to help manage their clients’ hybrid scenarios remains rich with opportunities for laptops/PCs, printers, security provisions, document/content management, et al.
As we put the finishing touches on our April State of the Industry report on managed IT, our dealer panel discusses the keys to scaling their offerings to better meet the requirements of tomorrow’s office.
One tactic being followed by Systel Business Equipment of Fayetteville, North Carolina, is emphasizing the importance of network security and bringing awareness to underlying threats and vulnerabilities that put business networks at risk. According to Michelle Shepard, vice president of sales, this is vital to helping businesses truly understand the urgency behind support services in general.
“Managed IT services are cost-effective and customizable to individual business needs,” she said. “We are educating businesses; we aren’t just selling them a service, but are providing them with 24/7 support, business continuity, and a positive service and support experience.”
Cloud Competence
According to TJ DeBello, vice president of sales, Stargel Office Solutions-Star Managed Services, the Houston-based dealership is evaluating how to alter its pricing model to tailor to the changes clients are demanding from a master MSP (MMSP). One element will be helping clients leverage cloud options that are as secure and stable as on-premise platforms.
“That will be the key to strengthening our partnerships,” DeBello observed. “Also, the ability to offer security options that limit the security risk posed by remote workers will be essential in maintaining the trust our clients have in us.”
In the case of U.S. Business Systems (USBS) in Elkhart, Indiana, the dealer’s own approach to the office mirrors its clients, with numerous USBS employees often working remotely. Ron Hulett, project manager, sees it as a simple function of providing the tools that enable hybrid workers to interact with their on-premise teammates equally as effectively. This entails more cloud-based solutions and virtual workplace tools.
In the end, USBS wants to go beyond being a managed IT company with thousands of endpoints to manage, according to Hulett. It’s a matter of being a high-value partner for clients.
“Our belief is that by having a deeper and more meaningful relationship with our clients, we can continually increase our revenue from them,” he said. “By increasing our internal efficiencies in our work, we can maximize the profitability opportunity inside of them.”
Employee-Driven
With the “mass exodus” to remote work, Usherwood Office Technology’s main thrust from a managed IT perspective is to monitor and mitigate the resulting increase in cybersecurity risks. Lindsay Usherwood, the Syracuse, New York, firm’s general counsel and corporate secretary, believes the road to scaling dictates empowering team members to make decisions that drive the organization forward.
“Whether it is evaluating the stack or training our salesforce, allowing the team to pursue their educational goals will continue to help Usherwood provide a robust defense to cyber threats and make sure our client’s network infrastructure are stable and optimized so they can grow,” she said. “This isn’t the first challenge our managed IT business has seen, and it won’t be the last, but our team stays excited to tackle any challenge we come across.”
Upwards of 50% of the clients for Definitive Technology Solutions of Bloomington, Minnesota, continue to work remotely, and many of them have decided to make it a permanent operations fixture. With desktop PCs giving way to laptops and employees operating outside the confines of the on-premise firewalls, the dealer’s security stack takes on even greater importance, notes Tom McHenry, vice president of managed services.
“We use an advanced security stack, including a 24/7 security operations center, to monitor and block threats as they arrive,” he said. “Securing their assets, regardless of their working environment, seems to be the hot seller in our market area right now. During the last year and a half, insurance companies have been raising policy rates on customers that don’t have DNS protection, phishing awareness campaigns, etc., on the back end. That’s a growth section we’re focusing on in the sales process.”
