I’ve really been enjoying listening to the podcasts over at www.sbsshow.com.  Where do I find the time, you might ask.  What works for me is downloading and syncing them with my Zune Player (Microsoft’s portable music player), then listening to them when I’m on the road.

When sitting there driving on auto-pilot, I’m a captive audience, which can leave many brain cycles unused and idling.  Not really sometimes I get my best thinking done in the car.

Check them out – interviews with experts in many relevant subjects such as disaster recovery, Web 2.0, computer security, building MSP practices, etc.  Be sure to click the Previous Shows link at the top of the page.

Have you found other podcasts useful to SMB IT consultants?  Feel free to leave a comment!

This article is intended for industry peers, so it’s written in the Techno-Speak language.  All others proceed at your own risk.  J

Recently I had a peer in the industry contact me with questions regarding MSPSN membership and AutoTask, a “practice management” app for IT service providers.  Given that the questions were good but common these days, I decided to share points from the conversation and what has worked for me.

Q: Can you tell me a bit about your company and what made you decide to purchase AutoTask even though you’re just a one man shop (OMS) right now?

A:  A cursory background was written here in my first blog.  Beyond that, my company has chosen to pursue the MSP (managed services/flat-rate) model for support and maintenance, as I believe it is a true win/win for the client and service provider and the future of IT service delivery.  Currently my PSA (professional services automation) of choice is AutoTask.

Why AutoTask while an OMS?

• No plans to remain an OMS.  My opinion is that disconnected, manual, redundant processes and their islands of data are hard to train others to use, many times not reproducible, and can’t provide information across the areas of business that I have, even as an OMS.  Creating the systems and outlining “the ByteSmart way” now will make my life much easier and support growth much more effectively.
• Being an MSP requires a PSA.  After going through the process of speaking to the top handful of MSP vendors, talking it up with peers, reading the equivalent of a dumpster full of articles, white papers, magazines, attending seminars, webinars, conferences, etc, what I found was that the successful MSP model really requires a PSA of some kind.  Maybe there are some companies delivering MSP services while getting by without one, but the profit potential is much higher with one. 
• The value of my time.  It may be true that there are 3 fundamental sources of power- time, energy, and money.  In that light, how much of one of my most valuable possessions would be spent learning 18 different “free” tools versus a few apps that provide a cohesive system that run my business?  Another point here is “free” tools aren’t free when you factor in the time involved. 

Q: Since MSPSN + AutoTask is roughly the monthly lease for a decent car, how did you justify the high cost?

A:  The way I see it is that the MSPSN Premiere membership cost is roughly equivalent to 1 hour of billable time and AutoTask equals about 1.5 hours.  Given my experience with these two, that is not a high cost at all.

The biggest reason I joined MSPSN Premiere was for the business transformation support for moving to the MSP model.  It continues to save me between a few to many hours every month.

• Example – The Masters groups and related monthly conference calls are very valuable, participating in active conversations on subjects directly impacting our businesses, saving me countless hours of research, learning, and mistakes.  (Imagine having Karl P in your group!)
• Example – I had trouble implementing and learning AutoTask when working with the vendor directly, but MSPSN’s AutoTask setup is customized specifically for the SMB IT MSP, along with their training.  Let me just tell you – BIG DIFFERENCE!
• Example – The documents at MSPSN are invaluable, among them the sales documents.  They provided what I needed to launch a cold call sales campaign.  I never would have attempted this without their targeted, outlined process. 

AutoTask makes me money and saves me money.  For the money I make and value I receive, there is no high cost to justify.

• Example – AutoTask has helped me capture and bill for at least a few hours each month that had been falling through the cracks before.  The reason is because I didn’t have a workable, consistent system of capturing billable time.  Using AutoTask is like found money.
• Example – AutoTask saves me hours each month when invoicing, as it centrally stores ticket details as well as ties the helpdesk system to the time & billing module and reporting and exports to QuickBooks. 
• Bottom line – Find a system/solution that works for you instead of cobbling together disconnected tools.  Sounds strangely familiar to what we strive to do for our clients… 

Q: What alternatives did you look at before choosing AutoTask?  Were you unable to come up with a good solution by using Excel/Word for monthly reports, and Outlook (maybe with BCM) for tracking sales leads, etc.

A:  My focus was on assembling the MSP structure, so research was limited to the tools to do so.  To deliver IT services using the MSP model, at a minimum the core system needs to have…

• service desk
  • ticketing
  • scheduling
  • reporting
• RMM (remote monitoring & management)
  • Remote monitoring
  • Remote control
  • Patch management
  • Automation
• Service Agreements

BCM for Outlook doesn’t really apply because I was looking for a RMM-aware service desk and IT “practice management” software.  CRM was just not a deciding factor for me.  As it turns out, AutoTask does have a robust CRM module that I have been starting to use. 

Word/Excel – Manually typing up summary reports for clients each month on AV engines updates, status of MS patches and other updates, hardware inventory, backup reports, network intrusion attempts, etc is not something I want to do.  That’s what the reporting in the RMM and PSA tools are for.  For that function, Word and Excel just don’t fit the “standardize, process-ize, and automate” goal of the MSP.

I also looked closely at ConnectWise, among others.   It seems to be a great product with lots of happy customers, but it was simply out of the ballpark price-wise for me as an OMS, unless I had around $12K+ to dump upfront into a PSA tool.  The last time I checked (fall of 2006), even their hosted model, with stripped out features, is over twice what I’m paying for AutoTask.  When comparing features and value to the price difference, for this OMS, there seemed to me to be only one option.

While there was a fair amount of talk regarding planning and assembling systems, that doesn’t mean that it has to be expensive.  I walked into using a powerful set of MSP tools that talk to each other, without any significant upfront investment, using the brokered licensing and hosted infrastructure models available today.  That means paying only for what I need on a month-to-month agreement.

For what it’s worth, the move to the MSP model is not for the faint of heart.  As it has been said, MSP is not just a new technology.  It’s a fundamental change in business model.  And that means business transformation support is a CRITICAL component.  Get it from somewhere and with it, the OMS can make the leap and provide legitimate MSP services in a responsible fashion.

Care to comment?  Different viewpoint?  Your feedback is welcome. 

Ben Ahlquist, SBSC, MCP, MOS 2000, A+