Striking the right balance between business transformation, portfolio expansion and future-focused go-to-market (GTM) strategies is key to securing a long-term competitive advantage, according to a Comms Vision panel of MSP business leaders.
Our panel of four high profile MSP leaders displayed a heightened focus on the requirement to truly understand the customer, with solution selling and an all encompassing GTM model dominating their current strategies and outlooks. Pete Tomlinson, CEO, Windsor Telecom, has refocused his growth plans and noted that until a strategic review was actioned the business's traditional portfolio fell short of being fit for purpose in terms of competing and driving long-term growth. "Five years ago Windsor was a single product organisation and that created challenges," he stated. "Customers love what we do but we just had one product. We were going backwards and the discussion about how to create an ecosystem of technologies that work together became critical. That starts by understanding who your customers are, knowing your market and knowing your proposition."
The need to not just evolve portfolios but also deliver a structural reinvention of GTM models was also highlighted by Vicki Rishbeth, CTO, Focus Group. "A challenge was pivoting our sales force which was traditional telco into becoming more solutions-led, based on an understanding that you are solving a pain point for a customer and taking them on a journey," she stated. "As we became more of an MSP we also had to look at our legals. We're not selling minutes and PBXs, we're now selling security services and have to make sure we are protecting customers and ourselves. How we sell and deliver runs through the whole business."
Paul Hooper, Managing Director, Uplands OneTelco, is also focused on GTM and staying ahead of the curve, and like Tomlinson transformed the business. "We were a mobile first business," he explained. "Mobile is still core to what we do but we now have a complete range of products and services. You do need to widen the portfolio. But don't go too wide, narrow is good, and base it on talking to your customers because they know best. Don't assume what your customer wants."
Hooper emphasised that getting close to customers has never been more important in determining the right GTM approach. This was also illustrated by Matt Parker, CEO, Babble Cloud, who pointed to a major buying trigger that must be central to all customer engagement planning. "Money is front of mind for almost everybody – less for less, so long as it's less – this drives many of the conversations we have, along with helping organisations to understand that there's more than one route to efficiency," he stated.
Baking-in high levels of organisational agility and responsiveness is also key and reflected in the leadership approaches adopted by Parker. "Leadership is about dealing with what's in front of you at any given time, with your style and thinking constantly changing," he said. "I've been running businesses for close to 40 years and the one thing we can be absolutely certain about is that we have no idea about what's going to happen tomorrow. The notion that you can have a single way of dealing with something that's going to last for any period of time is ridiculous. Self reflection and learning is key."
A challenge was pivoting our sales force which was traditional telco into becoming more solutions-led, based on an understanding that you are solving a pain point for a customer and taking them on a journey
The importance of getting to grips with the activities within your business at a granular level was emphasised by Hooper's approach to hands-on knowledge gathering and learning, which he says is an absolute priority. "In terms of my leadership approach, aside from setting vision and purpose I am the questioner," he added. "I'm the five year old kid in the room asking why are we doing things. I ask the same questions of customers... what are you trying to achieve and why? Being inquisitive is key."
Hooper's inquiry into the whys and wherefores extends towards how he sees and defines the business itself. "We're fundamentally a sales and service organisation and we work with technology providers - whatever the MSP label," he stated. "We win customers from large organisations that provide a point product or from small IT providers where the complexity of the IT market means they can't service their customers' needs. You can have a hero product, but we're not in the world of one point products now."
Growth and forward thinking are the top considerations for Parker when it comes to defining Babble Cloud and its objectives. "What matters is whether our stakeholders – shareholders, customers and staff – see value in what we do and who we are, whether a CSP, VAR or MSP," he commented. "Growth and being successful is what's important."
For Rishbeth, a crystal clear understanding of Focus Group's raison d'etre creates a clarity of strategic vision that underpins future growth. "We have to be clear about what we are as a company and what being an MSP means to us," she added. "You also need to be clear about what you're great at and what you want to be in the future, then bring the GTM and portfolio into alignment with that view."
You do need to widen the portfolio. But don't go too wide, narrow is good, and base it on talking to your customers because they know best
It is also clear that to deliver growth effectively requires close collaboration with key suppliers, pointed out Rishbeth, who called for more insight into what's coming down the value chain pipeline. On this point she sent a clear message to partners. "I need my carriers to be transparent about their roadmaps so I can align my engineers and team and bring products and services out quickly," noted Rishbeth. "Our most successful products are the ones we can integrate well, transact and potentially automate and self-serve in the future. These products are the real game changers and I need to know what supplier partners plan to do around automations and APIs, so I can set up our data architecture and tech stack through working together."
Rishbeth's call to action is reflective of how responsive organisations need to be to maximise opportunities. But the requirement to transform could be held back by too much retrospection at an industry level, believes Parker. "As an industry, one of the challenges is that we spend most of our time looking backwards rather than forwards," he stated. "We all think we're forward looking but we're not. We're looking at what's already happening and what other people are doing. If there was one thing I could get from our supplier partners it would be what they think the future holds and how we will work together to deal with that."
If there was one thing I could get from our supplier partners it would be what they think the future holds and how we will work together to deal with that
Being future-focused and playing the long game is nothing new to Hooper who applies that approach to his GTM model. "Don't just go for quick wins," he said. "Talk to the customer and find out about their journey. I also like to demystify acronyms and make things simple. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason - so ask the question and listen. I see so many people just selling product, but it's important to take a long-term view, understand what customers want and understand that sometimes you may walk away without an order – but with a potential future customer."
More consideration points
Pete Tomlinson, CEO, Windsor Telecom
Businesses just want to be better at their customer experience, their employee experience and how to provide that in an efficient way. That's why they talk to us.
Matt Parker, CEO, Babble Cloud
We were early in the CCaaS space and have built what I believe to be the largest reseller CCaaS practice in the UK. That started with one customer asking for it. We had a partner, sold that into the company and saw how much money we were making. We soon had 100 customers spending material amounts of money on CCaaS.
Paul Hooper, Managing Director, Uplands OneTelco
Drilling into CX is vitally important. This creates customer loyalty, customer longevity and an opportunity to sell more products and services.
Vicki Rishbeth, CTO, Focus Group
As more resellers pivot towards becoming an MSP the tech stack becomes more important, as does how we move and transact through a business, particularly when it comes to automation and AI. How this all fits together and how we capitalise on that is key.