How Can MSPs Leverage Business Analytics to Scale Their Business

September 6, 2017

Every modern business can greatly benefit from being more analytical across the board. The varying definitions exist, in a nutshell, business analytics (BA) is used to refer to a set of practices, applications, technologies and skills for analyzing and investigating business performance in order to make more informed structuring and decision making in the future. […]

Every modern business can greatly benefit from being more analytical across the board. The varying definitions exist, in a nutshell, business analytics (BA) is used to refer to a set of practices, applications, technologies and skills for analyzing and investigating business performance in order to make more informed structuring and decision making in the future. Companies committed to data driven decision making to rely on business analytics to create strategies and roadmaps. By leveraging business analytics, MSPs can gain insights that drive business decisions while optimizing and automating business processes. Big data and analytics are poised to shape the business of the future in unimaginable ways. Managed service providers can use BA to overcome hurdles and combat challenges, subsequently adding value to their MSP solution and business.

Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping gives you a visualization of your client's experience from their point of view, across all the varying touch-points of the sales process. Effective journey maps extend beyond the capture and representation of data in a visual format. They help create a sense of empathy for your clients while fostering growth-oriented decision making within an MSP. Having a qualitative, humanistic perspective on your clients provides insights into the why behind quantitative analytics and key business performance metrics. This paves the way for more confident decisions on where to fast-track investment on behalf of experience-driven growth.
Key business metrics can further be integrated into the customer journey map itself. The integration of quantitative and qualitative data using a journey mapping framework is the first step towards a more client-oriented view of business performance data and behavioral analytics. Customer journey maps are a crucial part of business analytics because they help identify key moments in the customer journey. Understanding how you are delivering on those expectations and needs allows you to focus investment on customer experience satisfaction, subsequently driving growth.

Set business goals based on performance

Business analytics can be used to better align client’s goals with performance. As analytical understanding grows, targets become more strategic. Setting realistic targets is important to an MSP because it facilitates the optimization of key business processes over time, allowing the managed service provider to operate and innovate in ways that make it stand out in the eyes and experience of its clients. A good target possesses immense opportunity to not only create momentum but also engage management commitment. Setting clear goals based on analytical data guarantees that accurate performance ratings will be maintained without any drop in service quality. Performance increases with better accuracy.

Feasible Service Level Agreements

A service level agreement is a crucial part of any contract between a managed service provider and client; it specifies, in measurable terms, the scope and quality of services that will be provided. As businesses become more data driven, more and more data is being handled outside the institution's control. SLA’s have to be put in place for vendor-supplied data. As an MSP you are responsible for delivering the agreed on service level to your clients. Ultimately, this responsibility drives everything you do. The key to regaining control lies in getting better information about the environment on which the business application is running through policy-driven IT management analytics and IT automation.
Unattainable SLAs force service providers into the unenviable situation of constantly chasing reality. No one likes being in a hole of their own design on the job. The surest way to get out of that hole would be to anticipate events. This is possible through analyzed policies as the basis of the agreement. With analytics, MSPs end up with service level agreements that are designed to support long-term policies that address day-to-day issues. Analytics is the first step towards SLA’s being seen as positive contributors to IT operational success as opposed to punitive contracts established to stifle innovation.

Author: Gabriel Lando

By Team FileCloud