The cloud is a permanent fixture. Businesses of all sizes are rapidly adopting cloud-based services. This shift to the public cloud has increased revenue challenges for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) as they seek new ways to enhance their value beyond standard infrastructure. To achieve this, MSPs need to set their services apart by offering extra support, such as assessing, designing, automating, and optimizing their clients’ applications and services.

Using IT infrastructure as software has never been simpler. The market for hosted Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) has become crowded and confusing, with many new players and services emerging in recent years, providing a wide range of options for customers. For several years, major cloud service providers (CSPs) with significant resources have been competing for market share, resulting in intense price competition for IaaS services like disk, compute, and storage. The cost savings offered by these CSPs, along with the demand for quick innovation and the agile development trend, have all significantly sped up the shift of applications to the cloud.

Large systems integrators (SIs) are also getting into the game, approaching the problem from a different angle. They are leveraging their relationships with large enterprise customers to both advise them on how to transition their infrastructures to the cloud services, as well as offer those cloud services where needed.

Increasingly, MSPs will need to steer clear of the undifferentiated and commoditized services that are being offered by the larger CSPs, and work toward building the customer relationships enjoyed by SIs. Nevertheless, the opportunity for MSPs is definitely there, if they develop compelling and innovative services relevant to their customers and strike while the iron is hot.

As an MSP, how do you create a new and unique offering in 2015?

One way that MSPs can add value is by bridging the cloud gap and providing a seamless experience, regardless of the underlying infrastructure – public, private, and/or hybrid cloud. For example, allowing customers to use the same “click” flows to provision new services, no matter which underlying cloud platform is being used.

MSPs can also add value by finding a balance between strong governance and user self-service. Customer applications need to be highly available, secure and governed by strong policies – end users need the autonomy to provision and access their applications at will. If MSPs can create environments with guardrails (i.e. security, cost visibility, actionable reporting), where users can flourish, then customers will beat a path to their doors.

Successful new services are best developed when they take into account client needs and requirements. The #1 item on the IDC Predictions 2015 is hybrid cloud adoption. Enterprises are quickly adopting hybrid cloud solutions, which are widely recognized as a major source of growth to come in 2015 and beyond.

MSPs know private cloud (e.g. VMware, OpenStack). Now, MSPs need to extend their management to the public cloud (e.g. AWS, Azure, Google). Centralizing the administration of a multi-cloud environment helps drive down internal costs and provides the platform for future revenue growth.

Here are five things to demonstrate today to differentiate your offering:

    • Discovery and centralization of all cloud services your customers are currently using (public and private).
    • A self-service user portal with access to multiple public, private and hybrid cloud services.
    • The capability to provision cloud and non-cloud services from a centralized marketplace, including your in-house solutions.
    • Cost allocation and chargeback from heterogeneous cloud environments back to projects, groups and users.
    • Actionable reporting and alerts to help your customers control costs and optimize their spend.