What You Need to Know to Evolve Your Business – Channel Futures

Mind your business and understand the big opportunity in front of you.

Small and medium-sized business are looking for partners to help solve their business problems and theyre ready to spend resources on the right partner. But how do they know if thats your firm? How do you know if youre the right firm? Do you understand the efficiency and effectiveness of your engagements at every touch point?

If you dont, your business could suffer. Customers are in the drivers seat, they have access to more information than ever before, and in a SaaS world, swapping partners isnt that tough a proposition.

In his presentation, Mind Your Business: Heres What You Need to Know to Evolve from MSP to vCIO at the upcoming Chanel Evolution Europe, Gregg Lalle, senior vice president, International sales and strategy at ConnectWise, will discuss how partners can crystalize their value proposition to make sure theyre managing and measuring the outcomes of their strategy.

ConnectWises Greg Lalle

Lalle shares more about his upcoming presentation with Channel Futures.

Channel Futures: In the title of your presentation, it mentions vCIO, or virtual CIO, tell us more about the vCIO and what partners need to know.

Gregg Lalle: Becoming a vCIO means you become embedded in the customers boardroom and you understand what the [customers] business goals are and youre not selling technology, or some new shiny widget. Being a vCIO is insinuated in my presentation; its not like a partner has to do something to become a VCIO. Its about benchmarking and getting an understanding of the metrics that matter.

For partners, becoming a vCIO means getting a seat at the table [at the customers business]. Its about being that person that plugs into not only the customers operational goals but also helps set the strategy and delivers outcomes, so the customer reaches their goals. Its also about helping to provide data-driven decisions, which is the ultimate goal. So its not just about mapping to the current goals but with your insight help to steer, guide and influence the vision of those organizations.

CF: The vCIO concept has been around for quite some time, but it sounds like youre talking about it in another way.

GL: People use the term vCIO but no one defined it they talk about it being outcome-based, but what does that mean? To me, it means selling the alignment to the customers business goals, to the boardroom.

CF: In your session youre also going to talk about another trend M&A and the abrupt rise of operational maturity. And that private equity is changing the channel landscape. Elaborate on that for us.

GL: Many partners are getting squeezed because private equity is buying up MSPs and theyre forcing their operational maturing downstream. So partners are getting caught in the middle like a sandwich. Theyre also buying MSPs and making larger MSPs. Theyre looking for [MSP firms] to buy and operationalize on their model.

CF: Is that a good thing or a bad thing for MSPs?

GL: I think its a trend. What Im trying to say is that sometimes MSPs sit on their hands and say, My lifestyle business is going to be fine and theres no sense in me trying to act or think differently. I think its time for [MSPs] to wake up and understand that they better run their business like a business and concentrate on that 24/7 because its never been more critical than it is today.

CF: What will attendees get from your session?

GL: Were going to focus on two trends that theres tremendous opportunity in the market today and MSPs are seeing major influences from customers and PE (price to earnings ratio) alike. Were going to talk about why its important for partners to know their numbers and deliver value through selling outcome.

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What You Need to Know to Evolve Your Business - Channel Futures