Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

How are your sales negotiation skills? Do you have a structured negotiation process in place that your MSP follows religiously to help you successfully close more deals? For any sales executive, I don’t think I’m out of line to say that sales negotiations can be a nerve-wrecking experience, as there are so many emotions at play and different paths of execution that can be used. But the end goal is always the same: Get that contract signed as soon as you can.

According to the TSIA ‘State of Managed Services 2023 Report’, managed services was cited as one of the top three growth engines for the technology industry, with a revenue growth rate that was up 23% from 2022. And according to businesswire.com, the global managed services market is expected to reach $311 Billion by 2027.

We all love a bargain—who wouldn’t? But not all great deals are good for business. As tempting as it might be to take advantage of a special product promotion that is being marketed towards us, sometimes it is necessary to take a step back and spend time really thinking about what the ramifications of switching to the lower-priced product could entail.

There’s been a lot of talk about a slowdown in global channel M&A activity in 2023—indeed, our recent MSP Horizons Report, which we did in conjunction with Canalys, highlighted a 60% decline in M&A compared to previous years. Another trend the report observed is a disparity between buyers and sellers in the market. While 44% of MSPs are looking to acquire, only 13% are actively (and openly) seeking to sell.

One of the main goals for every MSP is to make getting new clients onboard as easy as possible. A major way to achieve this is to rank high on Google for the area your MSP operates. Purple Cloud IT is an MSP that serves clients in the UK, but we’ve also helped many MSPs over the years with their SEO and Google ranking because we’ve found that we’re pretty good at SEO.

For some the term API can signal an immediate tune out. I have to admit, despite being in the IT game for 25 years now, I was one of those people. However, that changed to a degree when I took up the Head Nerd role here at N‑able, driven in no small part by the fact that I had to deliver a Head Nerd Boot Camp on Leveraging APIs in N‑central. Unfortunately, these APIs were SOAP based, hadn’t had much development in recent years, and weren’t exactly easy to work with.

MSPs have a critical role to play in safeguarding SMBs and SMEs against cyber threats, and there are always tools coming onto the market to help you do this. In a recent interview for our Beyond the Horizons Podcast, Dave MacKinnon explored some of the key considerations MSPs should keep in mind when selecting a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution for their customers.