Channel Experts at OS33 Provide 5 "New" Tips for MSPs on Selling and Delivering New Cloud Services to SMBs

NEW YORK, May 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In Part 2 of its MSP Tips series, OS33 channel experts talk more about how selling IT services to small and medium sized businesses provides a unique set of challenges.  Oftentimes MSPs are faced with educating business-minded and technologically conservative clients that a move to the cloud is the right decision for their businesses.  Developing a message that speaks equally to the CEO, CIO, and decision maker levels of your clients is key, and providing an integrated, user-friendly cloud-based service that is best of breed is a must.  Experts at OS33, an IT-as-a-Service Cloud Platform for MSPs, suggest solutions providers follow these five tips when selling and delivering new cloud services to SMBs:

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1. Demonstrate security of your cloud offering

Although SMBs are somewhat more comfortable with security issues these days, with today's high profile threats, it's very important to demonstrate in detail how your cloud-based offering is more secure than your customers' current environment. Having readily available results of security audits performed on your cloud-based offering will go a long way in building your customers' confidence.

2. Provide ability to meet compliance regulations

If you are servicing verticals such as government, medical, or finance, the ability of your cloud-based offering to meet the most stringent compliance requirements is a must. With compliance regulations getting more difficult to follow every day, a cloud-based offering allowing your clients to instantly address compliance regulations will be a major competitive plus.  Demonstrating that your cloud offering meets certain industries' regulations and having the ability to produce the necessary documentation will be fundamental in addressing your customers' compliance requirements.

3. Guarantee business continuity

Most customers struggle with moving to the cloud because it's difficult for them to let go of their IT assets without having a clear understanding of where and how these assets will be deployed. Prior to moving their IT assets to the cloud, your clients will need to hear more about the business continuity and disaster recovery options your cloud offering provides.

4. Showcase remote accessibility and mobile device support

A true cloud-based IT offering is expected to be accessible from any "connected" device. Business users are looking for a solution that will allow them to access all of their IT assets from anywhere without having to deal with limitations in functionality. Providing SMBs with a way to do work from any connected computer regardless of the OS, such as tablets, PDAs or mobile phones is growing in demand.

5. Highlight self-service tools

Your cloud offering should allow SMBs or business clients to have control over their cloud-based IT assets. As end users are getting more and more technically savvy, there is a strong demand for self-service IT automation controls. A sophisticated cloud-based IT offering should allow the following self-administration tasks:

1. User interface customization
2. Password management
3. Personal information management
4. Ability to do self-provisioning or request approval for additional IT assets (ie: more processing power, disk space, new programs, security access, etc.)
5. Ability to request support and manage outstanding requests

"While many SMBs have by now heard of cloud computing, there is often the question of implementing such a technology due to concerns about security, compliance, and/or accessibility to their business-critical data," said Jacob Kazakevich, OS33 President.  "It is critical for MSPs to be working with a top-tier cloud services platform with best of breed technology, SLAs and guarantees in place.  With the right platform, MSPs can confidently demonstrate to potential customers the benefits of the cloud and ease their fears about what a move to the cloud means to their data.  Delivering a virtual and unified cloud computing solution through an integrated platform is the best way to ensure SMBs can work with all their IT assets, and in ways typically only available to larger enterprise businesses."

OS33's easy-to-use, yet powerful IT-as-a-Service Delivery Platform is used by Managed Service Providers to deploy, host and sell cloud-based IT solutions to their customers.  Through a single web-based interface, MSPs can provision cloud-based infrastructure resources, deploy applications, and create companies and users – providing them with brandable web-based desktops fully populated with all of their hosted IT assets.  Utilization of OS33 tracking, billing and chargeback, ticketing and reporting ensures that the OS33 MSP partnership is profitable and makes good business sense.

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About OS33

OS33, the leading full-featured IT-as-a-Service Delivery Platform, has been tested and proven by thousands of end users. OS33 spun off from External IT, an MSP that provides turnkey cloud computing solutions that made OS33 the backbone of its business beginning in 2006. OS33 is based in New York City. For more information please visit http://www.os33.com.

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SOURCE OS33