Why your MSP needs a PSA

New startups and smaller companies, when they look at the industry big boys, might wonder: How did they get there? How do they manage the mammoth number of processes they have?

The reason is that the big boys spend big bucks on enterprise resource planning solutions to optimize their operations and keep everything in order. But ERP solutions were originally built for the needs of manufacturing businesses that needed a unified platform to ensure data flows seamlessly from procurement to production to product delivery.

In the managed services environment where things to be managed are cloud applications rather than physical inventory, endpoints rather than tangible assets, and, most importantly, when the core deliverable is their service and not any product, there was a compelling need for a service-oriented solution.

Well, that’s how PSA came into existence, but before we go into that, here’s a recap of how things used to work and what necessitated its existence.

Back when PSA didn’t exist…

“Fine, I’ll do it myself”. Smaller companies usually start out by doing everything themselves. Their ticketing system is a notepad where they write down customer requests, their project management tool is an excel sheet, and their invoicing tools are the random free online invoice generators they could find. Not customizable, not automatable. No way to track records or log audit trails. But (sort of) does the job. 

“Get the gauntlet. Assemble the stones”. They were meant to grow out of this strategy pretty soon, once they expanded or their client base expanded. And they did. Too much manual work with no accountability or visibility whatsoever can be a recipe for catastrophe.

The companies that soon realize the fundamental flaw in the “doing it myself” strategy attempt to remedy the issue by stitching a bunch of solutions together. A ticketing system to manage support requests from clients, a project management software to make sure work gets done, an invoicing tool to track billable hours, and probably more, until they realize all they are doing is managing their solutions rather than improving their business.  

“We should've gone for the head”. The list of things they needed new tools for never got shorter. On top of everything, they realized their tools didn’t play nice with one another. Technicians were left to paint the complete picture themselves with whatever bits and pieces they could make sense of from each tool. Mayhem ensued as manual errors ran amok.

For example, when the ticketing and invoicing systems don’t communicate, there is a possibility that a fatigued technician who needs to input the details manually logs the billable time incorrectly. 

Leaving the fate of their operations to a bunch of disparate solutions was never going to work.

PSA saved the day… 

PSA was the answer, which is basically designed to take the chaos out of your business operations by establishing integrated solutions, from planning to delivery. As the PSA solution centralizes the entire lifecycle of your service delivery, you are able to better manage client interactions, quicken issue resolution, bill accurately, and ship projects faster.

A single pane of glass view means one quick look reveals how a process can be improved or altered for maximum efficiency.

That’s a mouthful, here’s the gist -

In a nutshell, PSA is an investment that pays for itself in spades. Working with unified solutions is more than saving a few clicks or opening lesser windows. It’s about reducing chaos through predictability and achieving profitability through efficiency.