If you are a VAR or a system integrator thinking of starting your own managed services business, then this book is for you.
Get the complete picture of how to register your business & manage federal procedures, raise working capital, cut costs on operations, win customers,
and run a successful MSP business.
Understand what works and what doesn’t from the case studies and best practices compiled from hundreds of successful managed service providers.

Dev Anand
ZOHO Corp.

how-to-setup-managed-services-business.pdf

Table of Contents

	CHAPTER 01 Overview
	CHAPTER 02 Before getting started – Identify your market first
	CHAPTER 03 Identify what they need (what services can you offer them?)
	CHAPTER 04 Getting Started. Register your business first.
	CHAPTER 05 Finances
	CHAPTER 06 Operations
	CHAPTER 07 Legal
	CHAPTER 08 How to migrate from VAR to managed services?
	CHAPTER 09 Winning new customers
	CHAPTER 10 Virtualization sells. Sell Virtualization.
	CHAPTER 11 Advocate power management – Go green
	CHAPTER 12 Package your pricing
	CHAPTER 13 Build a service catalog, it helps
	CHAPTER 14 Build a remote backup service offering. Try Amazon S3.
	CHAPTER 15 Reducing Hosting Cost with Amazon
	CHAPTER 16 Make friends with SAAS. Resell Google Apps / Zoho
	CHAPTER 17 How to retain customers?
	CHAPTER 18 How to build a motivated team?
	CHAPTER 19 Which is better? Hosted or In-house?
	CHAPTER 20 Which is better? Multiple tools or integrated tool?

CHAPTER 01 Overview

What is Managed Services?

Current trend in Managed Services

Who should become an MSP?

Why do MSPs have a better chance of success?

SME Managed Services to boom in next five years (2009 - 2013)

Managed Services Market Survey

What are the chances of small MSPs surviving competition?

CHAPTER 02 Before getting started – Identify your market first

Start small Think local

Double check your choice

Get the list ready

Generate leads online

CHAPTER 03 Identify what they need (what services can you offer them?)

Know what (services) your customers need

Sample

Case study: AaSys Group Managing 75 Banks with MSP Center Plus

CHAPTER 04 Getting Started. Register your business first.

Checklist for registering a business

Step 1: Selecting an appropriate business structure

Step 2: Registering your business

On line registration

Step 3: Obtaining Employer Identification Number (EIN)

Step 4: Choosing your tax year

Short Tax Year

Not in Existence Entire Year

Step 5: Choosing your accounting method

Step 6: Submitting forms I-9 and W-4 filled by your employees

CHAPTER 05 Finances

Plan your finances

Salary

Other roles and responsibilities in a typical MSP Organization

Non-salary components

Lease

Operations

Hardware

Software

Marketing

Cost of running a 5 member organization

Go slow on hiring…

Raising working capital

CHAPTER 06 Operations

Plan for your operations

Reducing internal operations headache

Reducing external operations headache

MSP Center Plus Market Place

Case study: Smart IMS

CHAPTER 07 Legal

Legal Documents

CHAPTER 08 How to migrate from VAR to managed services?

WAR on the VARs

The most compelling reason for change

Managing change

CHAPTER 09 Winning new customers

There ain’t no such thing as a FREE LUNCH

Two things they want you to talk about

#1: Show them savings

Salary com

#2: Tell them they can mind their own business now

CHAPTER 10 Virtualization sells. Sell Virtualization.

What is virtualization?

How virtualization helps your customers?

Top 7 virtualization benefits that you can sell to your customers:

How much they can save?

Case study: Cornerstone IT

Server Virtualization solutions

CHAPTER 11 Advocate power management – Go green

What is power management?

Why should you practice power management?

How much can you save?

Power management in Windows

Tools that automate Windows power management

CHAPTER 12 Package your pricing

Importance of pricing

Basic pricing models

Package the pricing

CHAPTER 13 Build a service catalog, it helps

What is a service catalog?

Service catalog in ITIL V3

Sample service catalog as viewed by your end users

Internal view of your service catalog

CHAPTER 14 Build a remote backup service offering. Try Amazon S3.

Two reasons why you should offer remote backup

In-house backup Vs remote backup

How to build a remote backup service offering

Backup vendors

Case study: NetStandard, Inc

Amazon S3

S3 adoption is growing

How it works?

Pricing

CHAPTER 15 Reducing Hosting Cost with Amazon

Key Components in Amazon Web Services

How EC2 works?

EC2 Instance Options

EC2 Pricing

How EBS works

Elastic IP Address – for redundancy

Data Transfer: Accessing EC2

How Amazon EC2 differs from Traditional Data Centers

AWS Console and Elastic Fox

Hosting MSP Center Plus on Amazon Cloud

Steps to run MSP Center Plus on Amazon EC2 + EBS

Steps to run EC2 + EBS

Steps to restore your installation if MSP Center machine crashes

Steps to run MSP Center Plus on Amazon EC2 + EBS + S3

Steps to backup your EBS data to S3

Steps to restore your S3 snapshot into EBS

CHAPTER 16 Make friends with SAAS. Resell Google Apps / Zoho

Journey of messaging and collaboration tools

Google Apps

Benefit of SAAS

Zoho Apps

Google Vs Zoho

CHAPTER 17 How to retain customers?

Stop the leaky bucket model

Four reasons why customers switch managed service providers

Customer survey – a great tool to retain customers

Automated customer survey

CHAPTER 18 How to build a motivated team?

Single essential ingredient

Case study: What a young and motivated team can do?

Setup a test lab for your engineers to try new things

CHAPTER 19 Which is better? Hosted or In-house?

Hosted or In-house

CHAPTER 20 Which is better? Multiple tools or integrated tool?

Disparate tools Vs Integrated MSP Platform

Integration is the way to go

how-to-setup-managed-services-business.pdf


MSP Center Plus - Network & Systems Management Software for MSPs

Last updated: 2010/06/25
Author Name: Dev Anand, ZOHO Corp.