Tip Tuesday: Create a growth plan to meet the demand for managed services

Business is booming for managed service providers (MSPs). The as-a-service model has skyrocketed in popularity as more organizations embrace digitization and scalability. While that’s great news for MSPs, it also raises demand. If your business doesn’t already have a growth plan, it’s time to create and implement one. If you do have one, consider reviewing it to ensure it’s appropriate for the current market.

Why you need a growth plan

A written, specific plan for how you intend to expand your business is an important part of achieving that growth. The role becomes even more critical when you understand how rare significant expansion is.

Just one in eight companies grew revenues by more than 10 percent between 2019 and 2020. However, those embracing a growth-centric business model generate 80 percent more shareholder value than their peers over 10 years.

The MSP market requires a strong growth mindset if you hope to remain competitive. Experts expect the Security as a Service (SaaS) market to be worth more than $883 billion by 2029. Consequently, competition will become increasingly fierce, so you must evolve alongside changing technologies, trends and needs to capitalize on that potential.

How to make the most of your growth plan

Of course, a growth plan is just a tool. Its effectiveness depends on how you develop and use it. The following guidance will help you create and implement an optimal MSP growth strategy.

Cover all your bases

First, recognize that your growth plan must be comprehensive and specific to be effective. A vague statement of desired outcomes won’t be of much practical use, so your blueprint should also include specific steps and strategies to reach those goals. This strategy ought to direct your entire organization and cover all aspects of your business.

An effective MSP growth plan includes the following:

• A summary of your business’s current performance
• Near-term and long-term business goals
• Market niches to target
• New technologies to implement or services to offer
• How to develop and integrate those new services
• Recruitment targets and strategies
• Each department’s role in the shift

Develop a way to gather specific information about these goals and your progress. Poor-quality data costs businesses $12.9 million annually, so accurate record-keeping is crucial.

Stay up to date on customers’ needs

When defining specific goals to target in your growth plan, start with your customers. Many people today will tell you to implement trending technologies, and this can be helpful, but avoid investing in technology for technology’s sake. All innovation should serve a purpose, so consider clients’ needs first.

The best way to keep up to date on what your customers want is by communicating with them directly. Send out surveys, encourage feedback, and open support centers so you can gauge their satisfaction and where they’d like new or improved services and features. Studying consumer trends can also be helpful, but your most relevant insights come from your existing clientele.

Look for areas of improvement

Next, look internally to find inefficiencies or other areas where you have room to improve behind the scenes. You can do this by polling employees about what they’d like or what they struggle with and through internal or third-party audits.

High-growth MSPs streamline their internal processes as much as possible. Channel partner companies with the highest growth have just 12 partners per channel as opposed to other businesses’ 30. Reducing dependencies and focusing on a smaller set of specialties can help you optimize your resources for ongoing success.

Involve more stakeholders

Remember that forming a growth plan should be a collaborative process. Effective execution of your strategy will hinge on every part of the company fulfilling its unique role, so you should involve these parties in the planning phases, too.

Each department and team faces unique challenges and brings different skills and insights to the table. Consequently, siloed growth planning will result in a disjointed strategy that doesn’t capitalize on everyone’s full potential and may introduce unnecessary complications for some teams. By contrast, some firms have raised revenues by 34 percent% and dramatically improved employee and customer satisfaction through higher collaboration.

Review and adjust your plan regularly

After forming a growth plan, include strategies for measuring your success concerning your goals. These plans are virtually useless if you create them once and then leave them alone. You must regularly review your strategies’ success and adjust accordingly to stay current and adapt to changing environments.

Review relevant Keep Performance Indicators (KPIs) at least once a quarter to see if you’re on track to meet your goals. If not, look through your information and ask why. Early adjustments will help minimize losses and get you back on track.

Similarly, remember that technology, the market, and your customers’ desires can change rapidly. If you don’t regularly rethink your growth plan considering these shifts, your strategy will quickly become outdated.

The right growth plan will fuel future success

MSPs need a growth plan to remain competitive, but forming an effective strategy is often more involved than it seems. Knowing what your plan should include and creating a relevant, actionable one provides the best path forward.

These steps will help you make a growth plan ideal for your unique situation. You can then follow and adapt this strategy to drive success well into the future.

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