Managed Services Success Stories
Despite all the hype, promotion and endorsement of managed security services, it continues to represent a very small percentage of integrators’ total revenue. PSA leadership and other experts concede that will, and must, change. Actual examples of implementation are crucial, and were supplied in the “PSA Managed Services Committee: Managed Service Adoption Success Stories” session.
Tim McHugh, business development director for Integrated Protection Services (IPS) said smaller systems have proved to be the sweet spot for his company’s success with access control as a service (ACaaS). IPS stimulated its internal salespeople to embrace selling it by running a contest with bonuses for landing those contracts. “To end users, it can be very attractive from a financial TCO perspective as compared to a traditional installation. The mobility aspect and those capabilities are also a big selling feature. IT departments often find it appealing if a security services server can be kept offsite and off their plate as well. It’s not necessarily a solution for enterprise-level clients, but viable for three-, four- or five-door type applications,” said McHugh.
Ken Whelan, COO, Engineered Security (EngSec), shared that his company began doing offsite managed access control way back in 1982 and have simply refined the offering and concentrated even more on hosted solutions. The firm hosts the server, leases the equipment and replaces/upgrades it when necessary. He said they have found property management to be a viable market, “They like how easy ACaaS is without much to deal with. Don’t fail to see existing customers may actually want these kinds of services — they are evolving,” said McHugh.
According to Charles Denney, director, managed services, Ollivier Corp., “All of us that had been offering SaaS [security as a service] were well positioned for the pandemic as end users needed guard replacements and augmentation solutions.” He advised: 1) start with a leadership plan; 2) invest in a dedicated team including sales specialists and a program manager; 3) implement a strong commission plan paid upfront and over multiple years; 4) understand that some projects (e.g. cybersecurity and ACaaS) can launch as managed offerings; 5) other projects may begin as on-prem and evolve to partial or entirely managed.
“Convince clients on the power and advantages of outsourcing to the integrator,” said Michael Hanlon, senior director Integrated Security Solutions for Allied Universal, whose primary SaaS offering is remote video. “Manufacturers are stepping up to provide more products to enable SaaS. Focus on the ROI and operational benefits to the customer,” he added.
