How to Get Technician Buy-In for an Outsourced Network Operations Center (NOC)
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Original Post: MSP Blog
Have you considered changing your managed IT services business model to cut and smooth labor expenses, thereby growing profit margins? If you have, you've likely thought about the advantages of working with a Network Operations Center (NOC), a team of highly certified technicians and engineers that you pay a monthly fixed cost for. This all sounds good, right? Unfortunately, not everyone at your company may be as easily sold. Your technicians may feel threatened that they'll be let go and replaced with this new team of experts. How do you get past this? Luckily, I've talked to many partners who've been able to with remarkable success!
Contrary to popular belief, opting to leverage an outsourced NOC does not mean you have to replace your current L1/L2 staff. Sure, it helps eliminate the need to backfill positions lost to high employee turnover, but just as many partners use our domestic Help Desk as a compliment to - not substitute for - our NOC, so too do they use our NOC as an extension of their current IT support staff.But how can you convince your technician team that this is the best decision for everyone at your company?
Give them more responsibility! Show them that you value their work, and invest in their continued success at your MSP practice. Some of our most successful partners have repurposed their technicians into "NOC managers," which gives them the opportunity to have their team work on more revenue generating tasks and projects. Let's take a look at some of the benefits of adopting this approach...
1. Their work will take on greater meaning
As partners have described, when technicians accept this extra responsibility, they no longer have to manage tickets or machines. Instead, they manage the highly trained and certified team of 650+ NOC technicians available 24x7x365. What does that look like? When tickets are received, they'll determine which ones are handed off to the NOC and assign who's responsible for the work. Managing personnel is quite a step up within the company, and your technicians will feel like they have greater control over a potentially scary business model shift. They're not expendable; it's not just happening without their say. Instead, repurposing their talents in this way demonstrates that you trust them enough to put the success of your plan in their hands.
2. They'll appreciate your interest in their career trajectory
Adding "NOC Manager" or "Solutions Engineer" to their resume is a career-defining move, which will open up new doors and make technicians more attractive job applicants in the future. There's a big difference between being a leader and being a manager. Leaders empower and enable employees to grow their skillsets. The talent on your team is not disposable, and if you think it is, you're not thinking about long-term growth. Chances are, your technicians want to challenge themselves with new opportunities to continue building their careers. By providing them the avenue by which to do this, you'll earn their loyalty and help them become a more strategic employee for your MSP business.
3. They'll have a better quality of life
When you ask most technicians about a work life balance, they respond with a laugh. That term is just not a part of their vocabulary. Explain to them that with a NOC, however, they can reclaim their nights and weekends. That means they can enjoy more of their time with family and even watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones LIVE! If they were on the fence about buying into an outsourced NOC model before, tempting them with more free time may be just enough to secure their vote. Think about when the bulk of your tickets pile up. Often for our own partners, most disruptions occur after business hours. They need 24x7x365 technical support, but they don't want their team to have to work the graveyard shift. Not only is this not sustainable financially, it leads to tech burnout, low productivity and eventually, churn. Instead, some of our most successful partners set up NOC managers to receive all tickets during business hours, but then have the NOC automatically complete work on weekends and from 6 pm to 8 am the next day.
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What if i'm currently a one man shop. what could i use a NOC for? sell me
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@hubtechagain Definitely still a good option for one man shops. I'll link you to our product page - http://www.continuum.net/solutions/rmm-software/noc
And if you're interested in more info, you can contact one of our account executives - 866-223-7394
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Maybe better for one man. If you have a staff of 100 people, handling your own NOC isn't that hard. If you have a staff for two or three, it means people don't get to sleep reliably.
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pricing?
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@hubtechagain Pricing on the NOC? I'd recommend reaching out to one of our account executives - 866-223-7394
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@GlennBarley really, you can't ballpark it here? We have to call your sales team to get anything?
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@RojoLoco Unfortunately not, since we are a channel exclusive provider we would never want to share pricing and potentially put our Partner’s margins at risk if an end-user were to see the costs are. The account executive team can share pricing without giving you a long sales pitch, they just need to verify who they share that information with
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@GlennBarley said:
@RojoLoco Unfortunately not, since we are a channel exclusive provider
In that case we'd just need to know what providers to reach out to to get pricing from - but the general feeling around here is - if the pricing isn't clearly stated on the website - at least for a starting price, we probably won't even bother.
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@Dashrender that is exactly what I was getting at. I mean, @GlennBarley has a good sounding explanation of the why not, but that's still the wrong answer for most of us.
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@RojoLoco I wish I could help you out more, but as I said, you can easily get pricing from a quick conversation. We're not keeping them top secret, I just don't have the authority to share that information on a public forum.
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@GlennBarley said:
@RojoLoco I wish I could help you out more, but as I said, you can easily get pricing from a quick conversation. We're not keeping them top secret, I just don't have the authority to share that information on a public forum.
Because you only sell to the channel - I can understand you not providing any pricing... though I'm guessing that you probably have a MSRP that your resellers could choose to use or not - but let's assume you don't have an MSRP.... in this case we'd appreciate it if you pointed us toward a list of the resellers so we can look at their websites for possible online pricing.
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@Dashrender We have a bunch of our partners on this case study page - http://www.continuum.net/partner-success-stories
Is this helpful?
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I've had a conversation with one of the Continuum reps.
Booked for 30 minutes, it went on for 45 because I wanted to ask about details.
In terms of price, it is competitive. If you want to know specifics, ask.
They have a "test" phase to see how good the service really is, which I'll be trying soon. Will report feedback here.
@Dashrender said:
but let's assume you don't have an MSRP.... in this case we'd appreciate it if you pointed us toward a list of the resellers so we can look at their websites for possible online pricing.
How continuum works, is they don't sell to end businesses, they just want to give the technical tools and support backbone for MSRPs who you will build a relationship with, if you've not built a relationship with an MSP for holiday cover or technical backup, maybe that's one of the goals for the next couple of years.
@GlennBarley said:
@Dashrender We have a bunch of our partners on this case study page - http://www.continuum.net/partner-success-stories
Is this helpful?
Only if it loads
ok that was mean. -
@Dashrender said:
if the pricing isn't clearly stated on the website - at least for a starting price, we probably won't even bother.
My pricing is not listed, neither most MSPs, consultants or IT service companies
There are good reasons for that, the pricing changes depending on what you want to get. Will Hub Tech and NTG and Dara IT be the same price for an identical task? Probably not.Pricing was never a barrier for me regarding Continuum, if and I mean if, they deliver a really great service, then the price is justified.
The barrier was the articles, lack of coverage online about them outside of their own domain site.
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@GlennBarley said:
@RojoLoco I wish I could help you out more, but as I said, you can easily get pricing from a quick conversation. We're not keeping them top secret, I just don't have the authority to share that information on a public forum.
If we can get pricing that way, so can customers. And anyone could turnaround and share it. That's security through obscurity as an excuse for off putting high pressure sales.
Which means two critical things are being misunderstood:
- That you've advertised that you are actively relying on security through obscurity.
- That you've decided that having an open conversation in an open market isn't worthwhile.
That's what your statement sounds like to experienced IT people. You think it sounds like an invitation to call, to us, you've just told us that you don't have something worth discussing or that you don't feel that our time is valuable.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Pricing was never a barrier for me regarding Continuum, if and I mean if, they deliver a really great service, then the price is justified.
What price is that?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
In terms of price, it is competitive. If you want to know specifics, ask.
We did, they didn't answer (see above.)The reason that MSPs don't advertise prices is because they don't have standard prices. It's not a service that can be priced with a flat rate. If we do "true" MSP services, then pretty much all MSPs advertise their prices. For the kind of business as Continuum, which they are an MSP, it's standard to advertise prices and their competitors do.
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@RojoLoco said:
@Dashrender that is exactly what I was getting at. I mean, @GlennBarley has a good sounding explanation of the why not, but that's still the wrong answer for most of us.
Especially as this discussion has been had before, it's not new and should not come as a surprise how not exposing prices will be perceived. That information was provided proactively by the community.
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If you are a HP reseller, HP give you a list price for their machines at your reseller rate, you then tack on added value services and reach a final price. Do HP publicly disclose those margins? No because they leave it up to their resellers.
For commodity items, software, hardware, I agree price should be up front, but Continuum is about taking what they have at X price, adding your own value to that service and coming up with a final Y price.
