A MESSAGE FROM HEROWARE

August 30, 2013

It’s an exciting time here at HEROware. But you don’t want to hear me ramble on about us; we’re here to help you succeed.

Today we’re sharing an interview we did with, Ray Barber, Product Marketing Manager, for BYOD, Backup & DR at Kaseya. Ray is a renowned expert in the MSP channel, with more than 15 years of management, sales and marketing experience in the enterprise software space. He has played an integral role in Kaseya since starting their EMEA business back in 2003. Here, we speak with Ray about going “beyond backup” and how this can help you grow.

Enjoy!

Rob

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HEROWARE: You’ve been in the industry for a while. How has it changed the most and how do you see it continuing to change in regard to data backup and disaster recovery?

RAY: The biggest change in our industry has been that we are in much more of a services-based approach now. Right when I joined Kaseya back in 2003 is when technology really started moving into much more of the packaged, full-service offerings. Service Providers are saying to small businesses now that “hey, this stuff is important to you and we know you don’t have the resources to hire every single expert you need in order to do this properly. So what we’re going to do is package it up for you.”

So, as that has continued to evolve, many of the items in these offerings have become more productized. A lot of products used to deliver services are now getting to that point where they are so simple and easy to integrate with that nearly anyone can use them. Customers no longer just want a managed service provider who can talk about the nuts and bolts of using different products. They don’t need that. The conversation now has to be much higher level. Customers want to know, “how do I apply this product to my business? How does this affect me?”

Technology is no longer just an allied part of running a business but the foundation your business is based on. Backup and Recovery isn’t just a logistic. It has to be part of your entire business plan and managed service providers have to be prepared to have this conversation with their clients.

HEROWARE: You have given presentations on the concept of “beyond backup” to thousands of professionals. Please tell us what “beyond backup” means for HEROware’s clients.

RAY: Forget about backup and focus on recovery. If you only contemplate backup, then you really talk about the way we used to look at the function of backup in IT; that it was just a bunch of files we could copy and keep on a tape or disc, then house offsite in case the hard drive in the office fails.

As a small business, data backup probably won’t get you back to operational if a disaster happens. I hear so many stories of businesses that were backed up but couldn’t recover and were unable to get operational again. A good recovery plan is like an insurance policy for your business. You wouldn’t run a company without insurance and you shouldn’t run one without a data recovery plan.

A good example I know of is an accountant who had a hardware failure. When they went to use their backup files to restore, there was a corruption in the files. When they put thisdata into QuickBooks, they had lost customer data gong back years. Some of the info they lost was of a customer who was being investigated by the IRS. They were forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring a specialist recovery agency to troll through all their paper and IT files to put the info back together. The only other option was closing their doors, risking lawsuits and possibly jail time. If the accountant had a good recovery plan and invested properly, they could have been up and running in less than a day, for a much more affordable rate.

HEROWARE: Moving into the future, how can managed service providers stay a step ahead of their customers in regard to disaster recovery trends?

RAY: You need to understand your customers’ needs before they do and to do that you have to understand the value of IT to their business.

Go into prospect and customer meetings with a working knowledge of the financial landscape of their business, based on their size and industry. Draw from your previous experiences or do research beforehand. Where does their revenue come from? What do they spend their money on overall (marketing v. sales, etc). How would various kinds of disasters affect their bottom line? By understanding the metrics of your customer’s business and how technology plays into that, you will have a clearer picture of how you, as a service provider, can help them achieve their business goals and protect their business from potential risk. Help them find the right balance.

Just be prepared with a good working knowledge of the challenges and opportunities that face customers so that when they approach you wanting to protect their systems, you can work with them to tailor a plan to their specific needs. You should no longer be asking just what operating system they use or what hardware model they have. You are going to have a business-level conversation, about their business, not an IT conversation.

HEROWARE: How do you see companies like HEROware and Kaseya collaborating to provide the best managed services solutions to their customers?

RAY: Kaseya and HEROware are both enablers for MSPs, making them more economical and scalable, in order to deliver new or additional services to their customers. A software vendor, such as Kaseya, can provide the platform that underpins an offering while a company like HEROware can play a much more tailored, service-oriented role. HEROware can bring together the various elements of software, services and even appliances to clients who need a “one stop shop.” This type of service shortens their time to market and eliminates a lot of the guesswork in putting together a service offering for their customers. Because of this, MSPs who can’t or don’t want to build this kind of service themselves can add new, recurring revenue streams much more quickly and easily, with little risk. It’s a win-win.