Archive for category Business Strategy
NOC? VAR? MSP? SOS!
Posted by Kent Martin in Business Strategy, Ramblings, Technobabble on January 26, 2012
Greetings reader,
We at Rezitech pride ourselves on the disambigous nature of our concise communication with current and prospective clients. However, due to the specifically technical nature of our industry there are some common (often misunderstood) abbreviations and acronyms which are used as a shorthand for framing general IT discussion. As such, this esoteric second language can become quite impenetrable without a key or guide. Today, I’ll be referencing and defining a few of these common terms towards the goal of enhancing your understanding of the general concepts therein related.
- NOC = Network Operations Center
- A Network Operations Center is one or more off-site or remote locations from which control is exercised over a computer network. Essentially, a NOC operates like your in-house IT department; only it performs (often automated) maintenance and implementation tasks remotely via the internet. A NOC is typically responsible for: updating and maintaining server and desktop operating systems to keep them at peek operational trouble-free performance, supervising backups, handling systems administration tasks such as user supervisionand file access, and monitoring the security and stability of the network and all connected systems and equipment. Due to the nature of our global economy, this term has of late become somewhat synonymous with Asian (read Indian) network maintenance/monitoring outsource providers, but this is not always the case.
- VAR = Value Added Reseller
- A Value Added Reseller is a business entity that adds features or services to an existing product, then resells it (usually to end-users) as an integrated product or complete “turn-key” solution. For example, Rezitech is a VAR for Microsoft products – when we sell a license for a Microsoft Server product; we package it with our knowledge and expertise to configure that product and deploy it effectively to suit the needs and wants of our customer. The added value can also come from our other professional services such as integrating, customizing, consulting, training and implementation.
- MSP = Managed Services Provider
- A Managed Services Provider is an IT solutions provider, who manages and assumes responsibility for providing a defined set of services to their clients either proactively or as they and/or the client determine that suchservices are needed. Most MSPs bill an upfront setup or transition and an ongoing flat or near-fixed monthly fee, which benefits their clients by providing them with predictable IT support costs while ensuring that their business systems will remain reliably operational. At Rezitech, we provide a full compliment of managed services including email and web hosting, systems backup, IT systems oversight, phone systems, and turn-key total information systems supervision and maintenance responsibility. In short – we are your IT department, helpdesk, and web services host.
- SLA = Service Level Agreement
- A Service Level Agreement is a part of a service contract where the level of service, scope, and price are formally defined. This agreement is formalized and documented as agreed to by both parties,provider and client. At Rezitech, when we on-board a client for Managed Services; we contractually define the scope and cost of these services via an SLA.
- HaaS/SaaS = Hardware as a Service/Software as a Service
- Hardware as a Service is a procurement process similar to licensing. Generally speaking, anMSP (such as Rezitech) monitors and administers hardware on a client’s site on a subscription basis. In order to standardize on best practices and current technology, we as MSP also provide on-site hardware and software for our clients and build its cost into their fees. For example – when a client needs a new server; instead of investing the capital required to purchase the hardware and software outright, we procure the hardware and the software licensing and provide it to the customer for a monthly contractedfee. This reduces the total cost of ownership and ensures current technology will always be deployed. Our HaaS contracts generally include a schedule for replacing and upgrading the hardware and software; usually every few years. This ensures that our customer’s IT infrastructure never falls into obsolescence.
I certainly hope this brief enumeration has enhanced your understanding of how we frame the discussion for providing our many excellent services to our customers. In my next post, I’ll be tackling: just what exactly is “the cloud” and “cloud computing”?
Until then,
Kent
Business vs. Personal
Posted by Troy Ready in Business Strategy, Ramblings on June 14, 2010
I was listening to a podcast last week, and of viewpoints really struck me.
The topic being discussed was the upcoming release of Windows Phone 7. For the uninitiated, Microsoft is launching their next mobile phone platform at the end of the year. It’s a relaunch of their platform in many ways, and could be summarized as an effort to refocus the brand toward the consumer-space (i.e. compete against the iPhone).
One of the guests postulated that Windows Phone could still sell well in the business market, because all business’s care about are things like remote-wipe, VPN-connectivity, etc. This really struck as as shortsighted, as it completely misses what’s happening to business technology use.
Technology is becoming more and more a part of our lives. Smartphone use continues to rise, notebook sales continue to rise, etc — technology, as it relates to business, is becoming less about the machines you use at the office and more about what you have around nearly every waking minute of the day.
As a specific example, it wasn’t surprising to see the iPhone take corporate networks by storm over the last couple years. People want to use the technology they like, and they’re not especially excited about taking what their IT support give them. Even as corporate network policies stated “NO UNAUTHORIZED DEVICES ALLOWED”, executives continued to buy the devices they actually wanted to use. In the end, the proliferation of these “consumer” devices caused many network policies to change.
It’s the job of IT support personnel to find solutions that their clients want. Just focusing on traditional “business” platforms will leave clients unhappy, and have them seeking nice/cooler/sleeker options elsewhere. I’d rather sell someone an iPhone that they’ll use and love, than a “business” BlackBerry that they’ll use for their e-mail only. And naturally, that’s better business strategy — making clients happy will help you keep those clients and earn some recommendations for new ones.
(P.S. I don’t mean to praise/pick on Apple/RIM too much specifically, but I wanted to use some current examples– the mobile phone market changes quickly and it’s anyone’s guess what the next hot thing will be).
Excellent Service Through Predictability
Posted by Travis Austin in Business Strategy on June 2, 2010
This week, I’m attending a technical conference in Las Vegas at the Four Seasons Hotel. I must say – the service at this hotel is excellent.
I spent some time today pondering why I’d consider the service “excellent”, and I realized it all has to do with predictability.
The staff always steps aside as I pass them in the hallway. The alarm clock is always turned toward the bed during the evening turn down. The hotel staff always greets me when I pass the lobby. I’m sure there are a million other things they do to make my stay spectacular, and I’ll never notice even a small fraction of them.
How can your business be predictably excellent?
Empowering the Team with Pre-Emptive Questioning
Posted by Travis Austin in Business Strategy on May 25, 2010
As our business grows, I find myself with more and more opportunities to pass work on to others in my organization. I am constantly training, providing input and feedback, and helping my team be effective, productive, and efficient. It is not uncommon that I notice my team doing tasks or making decisions differently than I would in a similar situation. This difference isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s my job to provide general direction and help to keep things on course. And, ultimately, every decision we make falls on my shoulders.
Of course, I could simply do everything myself. I could run the entire business with no outside help, removing any opportunity for business growth or diversity. If you want something done right, do it yourself, right? But this would just be silly. My entire team knows how much of a bottleneck I can be to our processes since I have so much going on. Thinking that things would better if it were just me is ludicrous. For instance, next week I’ll be in Las Vegas, and the week after I’ll be in Dallas. There’s no way I can do everything myself. And I don’t want to.
So, how do I keep quality high within our organization but also not get roped into doing everything myself? Simply put, I teach my team how I think instead of telling them what to do. It’s something I call “pre-emptive questioning”.
Here’s what I mean by that.
Instead of me making every decision within our organization, my goal is to empower our team by helping them understand how I think so that they can make decisions without requiring constant input from me.
This mindset is most critical early on in any decision-making process.
Many problems arise which ultimately require my approval but most of the research will be done by another member of the team. When these situations arise, it is my job to set the stage for this decision to be made. If I simply ask my teammate to research the situation and then come back with a recommendation, it is very likely that I will have more questions when he comes back the first few times. This creates a long and drawn out period of back and forth questions which can be frustrating to he and me both.
The other option is that I provide my teammate with the questions that I will need answered in order to make a final decision, and then ask him to research the situation and bring back a recommendation. By pre-emptively questioning him about the situation, I am increasing the likelihood that he return with all the information I will need to then make a final decision.
For example…
Just last week we had a problem in our data center which required us to make a purchase. We could decide to fix the issue with a cheap but possibly short-term fix, or we could use this as an opportunity to fix it long-term with an upgrade.
I brought our lead systems engineer up to speed on the issue to get his input and insight (I truly did want his opinion on what to do). He suggested a particular fix, and we disagreed a little on the exact implementation of this fix. As we went back and forth, I came to a realization: I could remain very hands-on to this situation, and allow it to slow down other initiatives in the organization, or I could empower my colleague to handle the situation while I remained focused on my other responsibilities.
I wanted to empower him. But how?
Instead of telling him I wanted it done my way and sending him on his way, I explained what criteria I wanted him to use when making a decision. His instructions were not “go buy a new server”. Instead, I articulated what things I wanted him to look into, what dollar amounts I wanted him to be sure he knew, and what specifications and calculations I wanted to be sure he had uncovered before making a purchase. With this information, I sent him on his way.
Now, the situation is “owned” by him. He hopefully has an understanding of the parameters within which I want a decision to be made, and he’s now been empowered to make the decisions he needs to make within these parameters.
Although he’ll need to check in with me to actually make the final purchase, he now knows what things I’ll want to understand before I’m comfortable giving the go ahead. And he has the information he needs to present me a complete and coherent recommendation, being sure to address all the items that I’ll need addressed.
Hopefully, we’ve reduced the number of times I need to interact with this situation to two: first, to explain how I want the decision made, and then, second, to give a final once-over to the final decision.
Trinkets, Trash, and SWAG
Posted by Travis Austin in Business Strategy on May 20, 2010
I almost always depart industry events with more stuff than I had when I arrived. On my desk right now, I have a CompTIA acrylic cup, an Autotask mug, a Taylor Business Group pen, and a Robin Robins leather legal-pad folio. I also have a slinky-like, elastic, spongy, tentaticled toy (I have NO idea what this thing is supposed to be) from an Orange County datacenter. Bottom line: I have a bunch of branded stuff. And I keep the interesting and the useful stuff, and throw the rest away.
As a service provider, I find it important to develop the Rezitech and MSPintegrations brands, and to be sure that our customers think of us often. To accomplish this, we need our SWAG to be memorable or useful – or both. This is a difficult feat to accomplish with so many options available, and I simply don’t have the time to keep up on what’s available. I’m also not the creative guy around here, and my ideas are probably only going to be memorable as my staff laughs at me for ordering yet another box of monitor squeegies that we’ll never be able to give away.
With this in mind, I was quite excited to join Kyle Kalma of Clear Media for lunch yesterday (we met at one of my favorite Fullerton restaraunts, The Olde Ship). Kyle is the local SWAG genius (oh, SWAG stands for Stuff We All Get, in case you were wondering) and I used my lunch opportunity to learn more about Clear Media, their products, and a little bit about what makes Kyle tick.
The thing that stands out to me about Kyle is his desire to create a long lasting relationship with his customers. The SWAG industry is filled with one-shot sales guys who want to sell whatever they can and then move on. Kyle, on the other hand, would rather talk me out of a poor purchase so that he can continue to earn my long-term business. He definately understands the value of relationships and building long-lasting business partnerships and I value that about him. He strives to understand our business and customers so that he can make some great recommendations (he came up with a killer idea to follow up to our recent StickerTrav campaign — it’s going to be hilarious).
I’m thrilled to consider Clear Media our partner thanks to Kyle’s excellent work.
Blogging for Business
Posted by Travis Austin in Business Strategy, Ramblings on March 25, 2010
As a business owner, I find it vitally important to regularly meet with other business owners as often as is feasible. Not only is it just plain fun, but it helps me stay on top of my game, know what others are doing, and keep touch with other companies who can be mutually benefited by a relationship with Rezitech.
Today, I had a great lunch with Jonathan Pearson of Radiant Property Group at Corner Bakery Cafe in Brea. First off, I’m really excited to know Jonathan. When the housing bubble burst a few years back, he lost a significant portion of his income (he worked in the housing industry) and ended up having to short-sell his own home. Instead of letting that get the best of him, though, Jonathan is now using his own experiences to provide empathy and care to others who face similar situations. He and his team at Radiant regularly work with homeowners in North Orange County and throughout Southern California who are facing mortgage trouble. I’ve known Jonathan for a number of years, and I have no doubt that he should be the first person everyone should turn to when facing mortgage and real estate trouble.
Anyways, Jonathan and I spent a good portion of our time discussing blogging and how it can help SEO for any business, and our conversation couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Just last week, I spent several days in New Orleans with 10 other IT business CEOs from around the country, and website content was something we touched on, as well. One of my fellow CEOs in New Orleans also happens to be the very best example I know of a person who is excellent at blogging for business: Karl Palachuk. Karl and I also talked about blogging for business, and, based on my conversation today with Jonathan and last week with Karl, I’ve compiled a list of ideas to stimulate ideas for blogging:
Always Be Pimping
I have no idea where I first heard this (maybe from Chris Rue, but I’m sure he heard it from someone else like Erick Simpson or even Karl), but it’s pretty straight forward. The idea is to promote your products and services every chance you get (did you know that Rezitech can save money from your phone bill? I’m just saying pimping), and this includes in your blog. Whenever the opportunity arises (Rezitech can also provide your entire IT infrastructure with zero up-front investment!) you should mention how your company can help others.
Cross Promote
This goes along with Always Be Pimping. The idea here is to cross-reference other blogs, websites, and references anywhere possible. You’ll see above that I’ve placed hyperlinks anywhere I could. Hopefully, some of the guys I’ve linked to will link back to me at some point, and we can all help each other get more traffic.
Blog About Your Day
Jonathan is in the real estate industry. He makes money when people move into the areas that he serves, so, in many ways, he’s selling his expertise on the area. If he goes to a cool coffee shop, event, store, restaraunt, or whatever, he could jot a quick blog about it. He could mention how great it is to have lunch with Travis at Corner Bakery (ah, shucks… thanks, Jonathan), or talk about the upcoming Railroad Days in Brea (looks pretty cool if you ask me!). By sharing cool events and tidbits of info, people will know him as an authority in his area. That makes for a great real estate guy.
Blog About Your Life
Yesterday, I took the Amtrak to San Diego for an event I did with Autotask. I could write a blog entry about how great it was to sit in a train for 2 hours instead of driving. I could talk about the fact that it gave me time to sit, relax, use my laptop, and event catch a couple nods of sleep.
Brag About New Customers
Whenever Jonathan gets a new client, or saves a family from foreclosure, it would make for a great quick blog entry. Imagine how much more compelling his sales proposition will be to new prospects if they can see a list of personal stories of families that Jonathan has helped. In my case, I can blog every time we save a customer money (we recently saved a client over $500 a month on their Internet bill! Blog to follow…).
It Need Not Be Perfect
I’m a firm believer that an okay blog entry is better than none at all. My thoughts aren’t near completion on this subject, but that’s okay… this is a dialogue, not a thesis. I’ll add more to this list later, I’m sure, and when I think of more blogging ideas to share with the world, I’ll have another excuse to write a quick entry. Good stuff!
So, that’s about it for now. Bottom line — you should be blogging and using social media to promote your business. I have an appointment to make now, so I’m going to cut this off here for now, but I’ll try to finish these thoughts in the days to come.