1. Buy, Build, Partner: 3 Paths to New Managed Services Offerings
The march of new technology products and services has been a profitable but unending treadmill for MSPs over the past 40 years.
Businesses are looking to MSPs to provide all of the latest technology products and services that meet their company’s needs. But what does the MSP do if their customers want a product or service they do not currently provide?
This presentation will focus on analyzing the three “go to market” options of Buy, Build, or Partner for creating new products and services.
You will learn how to use a New Product Decision Matrix to sort out all of the pro’s and con’s of each new product decision to reach the decision best suited for your MSP.

2. Why Launch a New Product?
Competitive threat -- No one wants to lose a customer to a competitor because they provided a product or service you didn’t

3. Launching a New Product: Buy
Let’s look at the PC industry in the 1980’s.
If you wanted to sell PCs to your customers you could buy the PCs from a company like IBM

4. Launching New Product: Build
Build it yourself by assembling the components necessary to create a PC

5. Launching a New Product: Partner
Or you could Partner with a PC manufacturer like Columbia Data Products to make the PCs for you to sell to you customers.

6. Organizational & Functional Impacts
Launching a new product impacts your company both organizationally and functionally.
Let’s discuss the organizations impacts 1st

7. Organizational Impacts: Management
strategic objectives, resources, Risk management

8. Organizational Impacts: Finance
OpEx, CapEx, inventory, and IRR

9. Organizational Impacts: Legal
Contracts, regulations, taxes

10. Organizational Impacts: Technology
Vendors
Technology
Sales & marketing support, product support, vendor management, training & certification

11. Functional Impacts: Marketing
Marketing – market research, customer research, creating and updating marketing materials

12. Functional Impacts: Sales
Sales – appointment setting, presentations, sales support, contracts

13. Functional Impacts: Installation
Installation – equipment purchase, product delivery, training, and turnover

14. Functional Impacts: Support
Support – customer care, help desk, knowledge tools

15. Functional Impacts: Billing
Billing – invoicing, collections, dispute handling

16. New Product Decision Matrix
BUY
BUILD
PARTNER
Management
Finance
Legal/Regulatory
Technology
Marketing
Sales
Support
Billing
Installation
OVERALL
IMPACT
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH

17. Case Study Company Profile (2010) Current and Target Customers
MSP with 25 employees / 5 years in business / 80 customers / 400 locations
Voice and data networking, routing & switching, 24-hour monitoring, network operations center
Current and Target Customers
SMB financial institutions
New Product Description
Firewall & intrusion detection services
We are going to go through a New Product Decision case study to show how the matrix works.
This is a case study I know well because it was a decision I made as CEO of my previous MSP in 2010.
We wanted to offer Firewall and IDS to our customers who were SMB financial institutions like community banks and credit unions.
We are going to go through the entire matrix and put a green, yellow, or red block for each factor in the decision matrix.

18. Decision Matrix BUY BUILD PARTNER Management Finance Legal/Regulatory
Technology
Marketing
Sales
Support
Management - strategic objectives, resources, Risk management
Finance - OpEx, CapEx, inventory, and IRR
Legal - Contracts, regulations, taxes
Technology - Sales & marketing support, product support, vendor management, training & certification
Marketing – market research, customer research, creating and updating marketing materials
Sales – appointment setting, presentations, sales support, contracts
Installation – equipment purchase, product delivery, training, and turnover
Support – customer care, help desk, knowledge tools
Billing – invoicing, collections, dispute handling
IRR – Internal Rate of Return
Billing
IMPACT
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
Installation
IRR
< 10%
> 20%
10-20%
OVERALL

19. Summary Launching a new product is a multi-faceted decision
Buy, Build, or Partner
Organizational Impacts
Functional Impacts
Each factor has both qualitative and quantitative components that must be evaluated
The tie-breaking factors are Risk vs. Reward and IRR
All stakeholders in a new product launch must be included in the decision process before the decision is made
It takes a lot of time and effort to determine the best path to market for a new Product or Service.
The impact of a new product launch will impact your company both Organizationally and Functionally
Many of the factors have both qualitative & quantitative components that must be evaluated
All stakeholders in a new product launch must be included in the decision process before the decision is made
The tie-breaker factors are usually Risk vs. Reward and IRR

20. It takes a lot of time and effort to determine the best path to market for a new Product or Service.
The impact of a new product launch will impact your company both Organizationally and Functionally
Many of the factors have both qualitative & quantitative components that must be evaluated
All stakeholders in a new product launch must be included in the decision process before the decision is made
The tie-breaker factors are usually Risk vs. Reward and IRR