Boom in Managed Services Means Big Changes for IT Resellers

Sept. 8, 2010 - PRLog -- Agoura Hills / (CA) USA, Hamburg / Germany, Zug / Switzerland, September 08, 2010 -- A decreasing reliance by businesses on client-server based infrastructures to deliver IT services is drastically changing the business landscape for many traditional IT channel players, including classic IT dealers and Value Added Resellers, according to a new whitepaper from NovaStor, a pioneer in data protection.  The paper, titled „Managed Services: How to Adapt to the Channel Model of the Future“, provides an assesment of the challenges facing the IT channel and describes how IT resellers can transform the growing demand for managed services from a threat into a key opportunity for future business success.

Ongoing pricing battles in the software and hardware segments have caused many IT resellers to resort to price reductions to win customers, thereby throwing themselves into competition with large, anonymous online software outlets. These large, anonymous online stores have an advantage over smaller resellers when it comes to economies of scale, which makes it impossible for the smaller reseller to compete on price alone.

What they lack, however, is the ablilty to design a solution or install and administer the products they sell.  These are services which businesses are increasingly willing to invest in as it allows them to focus on the business benefits provided by their IT solutions rather than the product alone.  Resellers who embrace the managed services model and stress their consulting comptency by offering services instead of products alone can exit the pricing battle, add more value to their offerings, and dramatically strengthen customer relationships and loyalty.

In the white paper, NovaStor CEO Stefan Utzinger uses market forecast, analyses and customer expectations to explain what types of services make a proftable managed services business model.  Readers will learn about the starting conditions for resellers accessing the SaaS market, common challenges resellers face when setting up their own services, cash flow concerns in the classic harware/software trade versus managed services, and the unique advantages of backup and storage as a service as a way to break into the managed services sector.

Availability
The whitepaper „Managed Services: How to Adapt to the Channel Model of the Future“ is available for free at http://www.novastor.com/de/wpen/.

About NovaStor
NovaStor (http://www.novastor.com) is a leading international provider of software solutions for data protection and availability. NovaStor provides software, SaaS solutions and services for local and online backup, restore and retention of business-critical data. Clients include home, mobile, and SMB users, service providers as well as international corporations. NovaStor's cost-effective solutions are platform- and hardware-independent and ensure that optimal technological and economical use is gained from the customer's existing and future IT environment. NovaStor is headquartered in Switzerland (Zug), has offices in Germany (Hamburg) and the USA (CA, Agoura Hills), and is represented in numerous other countries through partnerships.

Contact:
Mike Andrews
NovaStor
29209 Canwood Street
Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Tel.: +1 (0)805 579 6700
Fax: +1 (0)805 579 6710
mike.andrews@novastor.com
http://twitter.com/novastor
http://www.novastor.com/