Distributor Ingram Micro Canada has expanded its offering in the managed services arena, announcing the addition of four new service and support offerings to its Seismic Virtual Services Warehouse.
Launched in October as part of Ingram’s new services division, Seismic allows partners to offer managed services to their clients with Ingram providing the backend infrastructure and enabling technology. The additions to Seismic include Seismic Managed Network Operations Centre (NOC), Seismic Managed Help Desk, Seismic PSA Tool, which will be powered by partner Autotask, and Seismic Email and Web Defence, powered by partner MX Logic. The new offerings will be available in late May.
Richard Caballero, senior sales manager with Ingram Canada, said the four new service areas help complete Ingram’s managed services value proposition, although new services areas will be regularly evaluated for possible inclusion.
“Suddenly the VAR has the total solution,” said Caballero. “A lot of VARs have been waiting on the sidelines for the total solution to come out.”
Ingram has targeted its managed services portfolio at companies with 50 employees or less, which Caballero said are unlikely to have their own IT department. Companies with satellite operations and knowledge-based customers like medical offices are also good fits.
Since Seismic was launched in October, Caballero said 150 partners have come on board, including 100 from Canada. Response has been strong, but Caballero said it takes time for a partner to reorient their business toward offering managed services.
“It’s not just a product sale for them,” said Caballero. “They have to be able to adapt their environment to offer managed services.”
Ingram is not currently restricting what partners can offer Seismic, but Caballero said Ingram has partnered with other vendors to form MSP Partners, an industry alliance that is working to develop standards and best practices around managed services.
And managed services, said Caballero, is changing the game for VARs. While before they’d operate in reactive mode, sending a technician on premises once something has gone wrong, managed services allows for remote monitoring and can provide VARs with proactive alerts, allowing them to fix a problem before the system is disrupted, often without sending a technician onsite, before the client is even aware of the issue.
“Now they can prevent the downtime, and they can also fix it remotely. From a VAR standpoint it drives staffing efficiency,” noted Caballero, adding the same number of technicians can now service two or three times as many customers.
In addition to helping with customer retention and providing a steady, predictable revenue stream through a subscription model, Caballero said managed services also give a VAR unique and often exclusive insight into a client’s technology infrastructure that can be used to gain the inside track on future business, such as upgrade projects.
InSite Computer Group, a Markham, Ont.-based Ingram partner, has already developed its own managed services plays in several of the areas Ingram is entering, such as network operations, but is using Ingram’s Level Platforms Managed Workplace offering.
Doron Kaminski, vice-president of business development with InSite, said with margins shrinking across the board on hardware, and VARs moving toward utility-based computing, Ingram’s play makes sense.
“Ingram isn’t the only distributor doing this,” he said.
Kaminski said he likes the services business because it gives InSite a degree of revenue predictability and allows the company to make better use of its technicians, particularly thanks to remote management. It also makes customer retention an easier task, as the VAR becomes a “more integral part” of the client’s IT operations.
“We’re really looking at managed (services) as a less touch type of business,” said Kaminski. “We can service 10 or 20 times more customers versus the break fix, reactionary mode most VARs are in today.”
Kaminski said InSite will likely be turning to some of the other Seismic offerings on a case by case basis, such as purchasing a block of helpdesk service as overflow for its own offerings. But for companies just dipping their feet into managed services, he said Ingram’s offerings could make sense.
“For someone who hasn’t been playing in this area it may make sense to take baby steps to see if they really want to be in this business, because not everyone wants to go down this road,” said Kaminski.
Looking to the future, Ingram’s Caballero said the company would like to develop a lead generation platform for Seismic to help VARs turn their managed services business into additional revenue opportunities.
