Clive Longbottom

All posts by Clive Longbottom

Clive Longbottom is a UK-based independent commentator on the impact of technology on organizations and was a co-founder and service director at Quocirca. He has also been an ITC industry analyst for more than 20 years.

2023 outlook – The future looks bright for MSPs

2023 outlook – The future looks bright for MSPs

As 2022 comes to an end, we are seeing that the “Great Resignation” due to the pandemic has turned into the “Great Layoff” as the global economy adjusts to current world events. Organizations are now preparing to ride out the...

/ December 2, 2022 / 8 Comments
How to keep your customers happy and profitable

How to keep your customers happy and profitable

To paraphrase Jane Austin, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that an MSP in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of happy customers. The fact is, happy customers tend to be more profitable than those who are...

/ October 11, 2022
Special offers can turn prospects into customers

Special offers can turn prospects into customers

As an MSP, customer loyalty can be a challenge – but first, there is the need to turn a prospect into a customer. These two areas can be inextricably linked: if an MSP operates as a completely open entity where...

/ August 31, 2022
Cutting through the complexity of MSP profitability

Cutting through the complexity of MSP profitability

Do you know if any of your customers are losing you money? It is often reported that any organisation’s profits follow the Pareto principle: 80 percent the profits come from the top 20 percent of the customers.  Although this is...

/ August 10, 2022 / 6 Comments
Are you using the right routes to market?

Are you using the right routes to market?

Being an MSP comes with its own challenges. In the early days, the main way to market was to set up a website with enough search engine optimisation terms in it that anyone looking for what you offer would find...

/ July 2, 2022
Tips to securing desktops help in the modern work environment

Tips to securing desktops help in the modern work environment

It now looks like hybrid working is here to stay.  Although some workers will return to the office on a permanent basis, many others will be working from home (WFH) either permanently or for part of the working week on...

/ June 20, 2022
The growing need for multi-region records and data management

The growing need for multi-region records and data management

The impact of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduced in 2016 with legal enforcement across all EU countries by 2018 has impacted far more than the 27 countries in the European Union (EU), or the broader environment of...

/ June 1, 2022
Are you portraying yourself as a strategic partner?

Are you portraying yourself as a strategic partner?

Being an MSP has changed markedly over the years. In the early days (going back as far as being an application service provider or ASP), it was a given that most of the business would come from a web search....

/ May 3, 2022
Let’s play acronym salad: Why MFA and SSO should be in your WFH BYOO offering

Let’s play acronym salad: Why MFA and SSO should be in your WFH BYOO offering

Previously, I wrote a piece on the role that bring your own office (BYOO) plays as the ‘new normal’ post-COVID environment of decentralised working becomes more widespread. BYOO and working from home (WFH) means that an organisation has far less...

/ April 6, 2022
blockchain for msps
Does Blockchain fit in with being an MSP?

Does Blockchain fit in with being an MSP?

Mention Blockchain and most people’s minds jump straight to cryptocurrencies. In many cases, the second thought that comes to mind is massive resource requirements. Cryptocurrencies are built on top of blockchains – and it is the mining activity to solve...

/ March 14, 2022