MSP Business Planning and Technology Success

For TruMethods, it’s the most wonderful time of year – Business and Sales Planning time! We have found through the years that so many MSPs do not have a business plan, and at the same time those that have a business plan seem to reach their goals much more consistently than those that don’t.  Why does this dichotomy exist? Oftentimes the link between business planning and day to day life can seem disconnected.  But how can a humble TAM (Technology Alignment Manager) or vCIO (virtual CIO) contribute to a business plan that is written by management?

The success of any MSP’s business plan largely depends on the contributions of the technology success team, as they deliver the value that clients can clearly understand.  Tighten up your processes, keep to your scheduling disciplines, and always strive for continuous improvement.  Conduct your TAM reviews, conduct your vCIO reviews, schedule Standards Committee meetings, wash, rinse, repeat. To quote one of TruMethods core values, you need to be awesome!

It isn’t enough to do just business as usual though, especially when planning for the future and looking for ways to make our process better.  What do your metrics look like now? What do they actually indicate? Are we doing the things to move the needle or things that just feel important but actually aren’t? Once we know the answers to these questions, we can write our own technology success plan. A good basic structure to use would be to come up with a Quarterly Action Plan, because that’s where it is broken down to what we need to do each day, each week, each month, to achieve our goals for 10 years from now. While it might seem almost silly to ignore a screaming ticket to write down our goals for the future, TruMethods has seen planning be a key factor in MSP success. It doesn’t matter if we have the plan in our heads or we think we’re too small to write one or we have this emergency, we have to have scheduling discipline to put things in writing. We cannot let working IN the business shove aside working ON the business.

Many TruMethods members already know this, but putting the Quarterly Action plan into motion is what our software (myITprocess) and our TruMethods Framework do best.  As a TruMethods member, you have a Member Success Advisor that you can reach out to for guidance, we will help you and your team apply these concepts to your Tech Success process.  TAMs and vCIOs even have peer groups that can help them with questions regarding their specific goals (TAM and vCIO all-stars). We have also often seen teams come up with Quarterly Rocks as things to focus on as a group, and they can be structured to ensure they are contributing to the company’s goals overall.

It has always been impossible to keep customers secure to the best of our ability without having proactive roles, and today’s environment only exacerbates and proves that point further.  Ensuring we can provide technology success also ensures we are doing our best to achieve all of the company’s goals across the board.  The entirety of your company’s offering should revolve around what your team is doing, so we need to do everything to the best of our ability.

There has never been a better time to be an MSP.  The security and technology landscape is changing constantly and it is up to us as technology professionals to stay on the forefront and protect our clients.  Being World Class is the best thing a TAM or vCIO can do to ensure their company achieves or exceeds their goals.

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TOPICS: business successIT standardsmsp business planMSP successvCIO
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