Introduction
Let’s start with the numbers:
According to Mordor Intelligence, the Global Managed Services Market is expected to reach $274.2 billion by 2026.
Yes, MSPs are obviously one of the fastest-growing markets. However, poor process optimization is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to MSPs' long-term prosperity.
In this article, we will consider the key challenges for MSPs in achieving their most ambitious business goals, and review the best automation practices to help overcome these challenges by optimizing their daily operations.
MSPs: 3 challenges MSPs have on a daily basis
Challenge 1: Appetite for recurring revenue
MSPs understand the importance of steady income. No wonder they are eager to find new ways of providing ongoing services that bring recurring revenue. Such business relations cannot be overstated, and the value of recurring revenue over one-time projects is undeniable. However, the highly competitive landscape MSPs operate in leaves fewer chances for finding such opportunities with ease.
Challenge 2: Trying to maintain the work-life balance
Let's face it: constant emails and phone calls, an exaggerated sense of responsibility, and ever-growing demands can make anyone’s head spin. For businesses that struggle to grow their revenue and stay competitive in the market, maintaining a work/life balance may seem elusive. The results of these efforts can be depression, fatigue and burnout, to name just a few.
Challenge 3: Manual operations
While MSPs are dedicated to guaranteeing business continuity for their clients by implementing the latest tools and technologies, very often they do not leverage these tools internally for their operations. As a result, this leads to poor customer experience, lower client retention rates and overall inefficiency.
The three best automation practices for MSP success
Now that we have a better picture of the main MSPs' pain points, let’s see what practices may help them overcome the challenges we listed above. Apart from making things easier for you, the 3 automation practices we are going to show you will help you gain a competitive advantage in the hottest MSP market.
1) Appetite for recurring revenue VS Being open to new business opportunities
What separates an experienced MSP from a beginner?
The ability to offer customers the best solution at an affordable price. In order to be able to do so, the MSP business owners and sales teams are in constant search of better business opportunities.
The good news is that this need perfectly matches automation, specifically robotic process automation. In addition to automating internal processes, MSPs can address clients’ pain points and suggest improvements to existing operations through efficient RPA technology. By choosing the right RPA vendor, your MSP not only can bring impeccable results to your clients, but impact the MSP revenue growth itself.
ElectroNeek RPA is a good example of a tool that can come in handy for businesses that are not ready to spend huge budgets on automation, as it offers unlimited RPA bots with free RPA bot licenses, and the opportunity to scale up exponentially. The limitless scalability potential is a unique value proposition in the RPAaS market, and many MSPs can start taking advantage of it from day one.
2) Trying to maintain the work-life balance VS Structure and standardization
Many work-life balance concerns in MSPs are triggered by the lack of standardization in daily procedures and operations.
We are not advising you to apply a one-size-fits-all approach; however, standardization is an integral part of any successful business. Apart from saving you an enormous amount of time, it will enhance your customer experience. And as structure lies at the heart of RPA, automating your standard procedures will help your business run like clockwork.
One of the examples of effective standardization strategies can be compliance automation. With automated processes implemented, this task can become a lot easier. Among the areas that can be automated within compliance automation are:
- Testing automation
- Automated remediation
- Automated workflows
3) Manual operations VS Automation
Manual execution of repetitive mundane tasks can be considered as an internal gap for MSP businesses. In the meantime, there are myriad areas and functions where automation can become your operational lifeline:
- Software deployment and updates
- Disc cleanup and backup
- Reporting and ticket management
- Customer billing
- Software updates
- Marketing automation (email marketing, surveys processing, performance management)
It is worth noting that RPA is a non-invasive technology that can work on the surface of your systems, including the legacy ones, which means that the implementation process is effortless, and the results are fast and impressive.
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve considered the key challenges for MSPs and reviewed the best practices MSPs can use to overcome these challenges.
ElectroNeek is a trusted RPA vendor that empowers MSPs with the tools they need to succeed by offering an easy-to-use automation platform for both MSP internal and clients’ daily routine processes automation, a one-of-a-kind business model with no commercial software charges that will allow you to grow your business exponentially and earn 6-10K on RPA projects, and top-notch orchestration tools to make your automation journey more smoothly.
Want to know more about the best practices that ElectroNeek uses to help MSPs?
Book a demo today!