R.J. Stasieczko

Today's MSP must deliver "Stellar Customer Experiences." Especially in this fast-approaching commoditization of the market. Master Service Providers strive to build a commonality they intend to scale. This commonality is destroying the originality of the MSP's they service. In enhance making them a commodity.

"Commonality is the road to commodity."

My experience in outsourcing the help desk with two different Master Service Providers I conclude the better option for the MSP's is to build and operate their own. Especially those MSP's who strive to stand out from the crowd. This article explains my reasons.

All MSP's need supporting vendors. However, MSP's must also differentiate themselves from a crowded field.   

Vendors who support MSP's are tools to help that MSP deliver better experiences to their end-users. MSP's must search and explore all that can improve on what they do, making them unique. MSP’s have to become more unique and build a model which allows them to increase their added value. However, an MSP's uniqueness conflicts with the Master Service Providers who aspire to scale commonality.

"Dependency on others always causes unawareness to possibilities and leads to complacency."

Master Service Providers live in the world which works for them, and the MSP is forced to live in that world with them. Unfortunately, the MSP's end-user customer lives in a separate world. The bottom line, outsourcing your SLA's first line of contact (the help desk) to a master service provider is a significant risk in controlling your customer's experience. All the noise which a customer presents the help desk goes unheard by you, the local MSP the customer contracted.

This silence of awareness prevents the MSP from learning things through the customers' conversations. The MSP is then limited to generic reports of the number of calls, the number of tickets cleared, or the number of calls still on hold. Everyone in the industry understands these generic reports and sharing them with your customer executives is a complete waste of their time. Soon they can contract with Amazon, or another enterprise provider and get a report online live.

The more generic in reporting an MSP is, the more commoditized their deliverable becomes. MSP's must add more value to the conversations with their customers.

Those who call the help desk you outsourced to are the internal customers of the decision-maker who sign and renew your contracts. Think about the information which is readily available from a caller to the help desk. Your customer's internal customers are a wealth of information for those willing to listen and when appropriate, have the time to be inquisitive.

No outsourced help desk can understand the peculiarities of all your clients better than you and an outsourced help desk will not take the time to be inquisitive.

Outsourced help desks are built to close calls quickly, and they cannot engage the caller in a way the local MSP can. The Master Service Providers will not hire staff based on the MSP's Culture, and those Master Service Providers who believe they can commoditize their culture are sadly mistaken. 

Those successful MSP's who have internal help desk. Built them to service their customers based on their own culture. The internal help desk will always be closer to the customer than an outsourced one could ever be. The MSP's with complicated customers will clear through the complexity much more efficient than the Master Service Provider.

"The commoditization of deliverables happens when the deliverable or service is common." 

Remember, Master Service Providers can only scale commonality. This commonality approach is deadly to the uniqueness an MSP must have to differentiate themselves from a crowded field.

Master Service Providers can not scale without being common to those they serve. So, delivering services to customers' with peculiarities outside the majority of the customers they serve is impossible, or extremely challenging at best. The more a Master Service Provider influences commonality, the bigger the threat to an MSP's uniqueness. MSP's must become unique to outpace the commoditization of the deliverable. Customers won't pay more for what they deem to be the same as the many others who deliver cheaper.

What can an internal help desk do an outsourced one can't?

The noise of the customer is critical to the awareness of opportunities, and potential pitfalls, which may affect customer experience. Your help desk is your uniqueness don't let it be a commodity.

Imagine this, of course those MSP's who outsource to Master Service Providers probably experienced it firsthand

Your customer calls your outsourced help desk. This customer has an issue with a third-party software they use, or the customer is using a thin client. Both of these things are everyday occurrences with your customers. However, these things are a minority experience of the outsourced help desk who services thousands of customers. The help desk tech answering the call who has limited understanding of thin clients and they struggle in understanding a proprietary software or your customers application. The conversation that proceeds will be a fact-finding odyssey which will challenge the patients of most seeking immediate help.

Requests outside the normal scope are challenging for the Master Service Provider's help desk. The technician will simply do what they can, but rarely will they have the ability or the desire to act outside the Master Service Provider's Box.

Today's commoditization of IT Services MSP's must look to differentiate themselves and strive to then delivery above and beyond customer expectations. They do this by becoming intimate with their customers. 

"It is through customer intimacy that value is determined."

Remember, Master Service Providers did not sell your customers, they did not walk through their facilities, they did not witness their workflows, they never sat face to face with the people they will serve, and they will never be as intimate with your customers as you.

"Status quo is the killer of all that will be invented."

Ray Stasieczko

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In a 2017 speech at the RT Media Summit in Zhuhai China, I warned the group of cartridge remanufacturers and those who manufacture non-infringing new compatibles. There is a more significant threat to both their business models than the threats from each other. That threat would be from the OEM’s as they would naturally attempt to get back their annuity business in a declining market. I suggested the OEM’s would compete like never before.

The market is consolidating and most definitely there is a reduction in customer demand. The remanufacturing and the new build compatible industry has never been a majority of the overall cartridge business. Some experts say they have around 20-25% of the market and much less with color cartridges.

Over the last couple of decades, Clover has bought most of the significant independent remanufacturers and along the way cornered the market on the collection of empty cores. Clover will soon, if not already, be collecting more empty cartridges than they reuse. When this happens, their business model is broken. I believe it has already happened. Clover’s broken model and their debt troubles will be significant benefits to the OEM’s. HP has already been putting pressure on Clover by applying substantial price reductions to shut them out of key accounts.

The good news for HP is that Clover is only one competitor, and the fight will be much easier than fighting individually the hundreds of independent remanufactures, Clover gathered up. Now the OEM’s will strike with a vengeance. It does seem that a failing Clover will turn out to be a win for the OEM’s. HP with the world’s largest base of customers will see the quickest gains if Clover fails.

HP’s recent news of their agreement with Xerox will cost the remanufacturing industry tens if not hundreds of millions. Xerox was likely the largest buyer of NON-OEM HP toner in the world. This new agreement will now mean Xerox will use HP OEM supplies in the millions of HP printers that Xerox has on Managed Print Service Contracts. It is safe to say that the day of that announcement was not a happy day for our friends at Clover.

The OEMs will focus on beating down the largest remanufacturer then they will focus on the nonpatient infringement new build manufactures. I think that some of the OEM’s will, in fact, partner with or acquire these new build manufactures allowing them to lower their supply cost. The OEM’s are not going to lay low in a declining market and will fight viciously for their aftermarket business.

Clover is still hundreds of millions in debt, and if they continue to lose considerable accounts to HP, they will struggle under a model which collects more cartridge cores than it fills or, remanufactures.

The silver lining in this competitive landscape. Is that the smaller regional remanufactures might have a play and will not concern the OEM’s as they will focus on finishing off Clover and watching for those new build manufactures who violate patents.

The alternative cartridge business will reduce in percentage, and those who survive can provide alternatives to end-users. One thing for sure you wouldn’t want to be the largest and find yourself collecting more empties than you remanufacture.

Read a related article about HP and Xerox by Ray Stasieczko at https://www.rtmworld.com/featu...e-the-check-to-carl/

Editor: Ray Stasieczko will be a speaker at this year’s Summit in Zhuhai on October 16 predicting what will happen next in the world’s largest printer and consumables market.

Note from Art:  Ray gave permission to use this and we wanted to let you know that you view this article here on RTM World