It’s not an easy time in managed IT. In a crowded market, service providers are under pressure to deliver a comprehensive IT solution with high-quality service, while behind the scenes, challenges with labor shortages and customer acquisition persist – all while managing the complexities and costs of multiple vendors and technology that’s always changing in an ever-competitive ecosystem. And despite a growing trend of midsized companies favoring in-house technology solutions to keep costs down, the global managed services market continues to expand – forecasted to grow 14% annually through 2030. MSPs who want to survive and thrive in an IT landscape that’s evolving at breakneck speed need to plant seeds today that will help them provide solutions that are secure, reliable, and efficient well into the future.
But it’s easier said than done. Most managed services providers have areas of specialty they do better than others, and the technical or business aspects where they’re less strong easily get overlooked and deprioritized in the busy day-to-day. As industry challenges prevail, an increasing number of MSPs are turning to third-party service providers to deliver IT solutions to their customers on their behalf so they can focus on growing their IT business. At Collabrance, our MSP customers work with us because they need one or more of the following:
- A dedicated team of expert IT professionals who monitor and manage their clients' IT environments 24/7 without the need to hire, train, or retain their own staff
- A friendly and knowledgeable service desk that resolves customer issues quickly and efficiently
- A robust cybersecurity suite that includes advanced threat prevention, detection, and response, as well as security awareness training and compliance support
- A consultative team to help plan and execute the MSP’s customers’ IT roadmap and align their IT with their business objectives
- A flexible and scalable IT solution that allows the MSP to add or remove services and features as needed
- A team well equipped and experienced in the managed IT space, offering best practices and KPIs to grow the MSP’s business
In this blog, we will walk through what it means to partner with Collabrance. You’ll learn how our MSP customers interact with each part of our team – and what individual and specialized value each part of our team provides to an MSP’s business. Dive in to discover the life of a Collabrance customer.
Defining team roles within Collabrance
The success of Collabrance hinges on the success of our customers. That's not a marketing catchphrase; it’s a dollars-and-cents reality, and it’s by design! We built our master MSP model differently to help service providers avoid missteps and accelerate their path to growth. With this in mind, each of our teams are designed to add value at every step of the customer lifecycle – all aimed toward the shared goal of generating meaningful, sustainable growth within our customers’ managed IT business. Here's how each Collabrance team plays a role in achieving that goal.
The Collabrance sales team
Think of the Collabrance sales team as your quarterback: They’re here to make things happen. The sales team is the first team a customer engages with, and the sales account manager is the person who will field questions, concerns, and manage the relationship for as long as the customer is a customer. The account manager is a customer’s guide, friend, mentor, and advocate. If there’s something the account manager can’t help with, they will find the person who can.
Where the Collabrance sales team’s value really stands out is in our sales, marketing, and solution support. Our sales engineering team will help our MSP customers build customized, per-customer solutions and write proposals. Our marketing team will provide education and tools to help you identify your target customer and develop a marketing strategy, and we’ll arm you with white label marketing materials and tool kits to help you generate leads. Our sales team will even sit in on your prospect meetings as a member of your team to discuss products and services to help you close deals, if you’d like! The sales team’s role is to support your MSP sales efforts every step of the way.
The Collabrance marketing team
Our marketing team’s primary function at Collabrance is to support the sales team by generating leads, promoting brand awareness, creating strategic content, and more. Simultaneously, we provide resources to help our service provider customers accomplish these same objectives.
Our marketing team continuously creates and updates a library of white label marketing materials to enable our customers to drive sales and promote brand awareness. This library includes marketing tool kits with social media posts, marketing emails, imagery, sales presentations, and more. In addition to robust campaign materials, we provide educational blogs, marketing best practices, industry specific sell sheets, and marketing office hours to answer any questions you have about the materials we provide.
We know that depending on the size and maturity of a service provider, investing in an internal marketing team or person may not be a priority. Working with the Collabrance team provides a steppingstone for implementing a marketing strategy. While we won’t post, publish, or send materials on behalf of your team, we provide the materials to get you started and can help answer questions you have about strategy or implementation during our scheduled office hours.
The Collabrance service activation team
Our service activation team begins working with the customer during the sales process to provide pre-sales technical support. Service activation sees the customer through onboarding until a new subscriber order has been submitted. The sales activation team also assists with all subscriber onboardings throughout the life of the customer relationship. They’re responsible for deploying elective add-on solutions and managing projects, and if a subscriber or customer needs to offboard, the service activation team will coordinate that, too.
The service activation team is made up of high-level technicians and project management professionals. They provide a vital bridge from sales to service, working to ensure all services are properly configured and fully operational.
The Collabrance service delivery team
The service delivery team – often just referred to as “the service team” – is the backbone of our business. The service team includes our entire roster of 100% U.S.-based technicians responsible for operating our service desk and network operations center (NOC). The team is segmented by the geographic regions of the customers they serve, and each segment reports to an assigned service leader. Service leaders are available to assist technicians with process questions, particular issues, project processes, tools, and anything else that comes up in the day-to-day. In addition to supporting our technical staff, service leaders meet with our customers on a regular, recurring basis to stay on track with goals, answer questions, and make sure the service provider has a consistent resource to address any issues or concerns that may arise. We let each customer determine the frequency of their service leader meetings – some customers meet weekly; others meet monthly.
Our Collabrance technicians will work closely with your MSP teams’ technicians. Our goal is to serve as an extension of our team, which means our technicians are typically in touch with your technicians on a regular basis to assist in day-to-day activities or issues that arise.
The Collabrance leadership team
The Collabrance leadership team are the experts who hold our business up. The team is made up of a cross-section of professionals from every discipline it takes to run a successful MSP. Our leaders are asked to grow their expertise on an ongoing basis, educating themselves on relevant innovations in the IT services industry, and participating in industry peer groups, associations, and learning centers. This allows for a unique perspective and ensures that the Collabrance business is ever evolving, just like the IT services industry itself, and our team structure and business model is designed with all customer needs and industry trends in mind.
In addition to their expertise, the leadership team brings experience, as professionals who have spent most of their career in IT services or the function of the team they serve. Collabrance leaders leverage their individual experiences and background to educate front line employees and to encourage team members to listen to the needs of our customers, creating a collaborative environment. Most importantly, the leadership team is a resource for our customers. We are fortunate to serve service providers across the U.S., with varying areas of specialty; our leadership team aggregates these experiences and can provide insight and guidance to our customers, helping every one of them learn from their peers and achieve greater success.
Getting started with Collabrance
Collabrance is a leading third-party service provider for MSPs who want to grow their business and deliver exceptional IT services to their clients. We are committed to providing MSPs with the best IT solutions and services to help them achieve their business objectives – and beyond. If you are interested in learning more about how Collabrance can help you, contact us today for a free consultation.
