A particular shout-out and thanks to Russ Atkin for his thought management and invaluable insights on the service creation course of, which impressed the writing of this weblog.
In my earlier weblog, I explored how Cisco ThousandEyes empowers Managed Service Suppliers (MSPs) to ship excellent shopper experiences by offering unparalleled visibility into community and software efficiency. As we proceed to delve deeper into the potential of leveraging ThousandEyes, this weblog will try to supply steering, construction, and finest practices for MSPs to think about as they journey via the method of making or enhancing a service providing round this highly effective device.
Why Digital Expertise Assurance (DXA) Is More and more Essential
The significance of DXA can’t be overstated. In line with the survey and evaluation within the 2024 International Traits Report, 40% of IT leaders and professionals imagine that the community can positively affect buyer and worker experiences, thereby advancing digital enterprise initiatives. Moreover, 75% of those leaders plan to deploy instruments throughout the subsequent two years that supply end-to-end visibility by way of a single console throughout varied community domains. Nevertheless, 35% presently lack visibility into full community paths, together with web and cloud networks, and solely 39% have both restricted visibility or full visibility utilizing a number of consoles into digital experiences between customers, units, purposes, and companies.
This hole in visibility and the rising complexity of community environments underscore the escalating want for complete DXA options. By addressing these challenges, MSPs can place themselves as indispensable companions of their shoppers’ digital transformation journeys.
The Alternative for MSPs
The development in direction of DXA presents a golden alternative for MSPs to face out in a aggressive market. By providing companies that guarantee constantly dependable experiences throughout customers, units, purposes, and companies, MSPs can differentiate themselves. With 38% of respondents anticipating their digital expertise assurance to be AI-enabled sooner or later, there’s a clear demand for superior, clever options.
ThousandEyes, with its sturdy observability capabilities, equips MSPs with the important instruments to ship a high-quality expertise. It addresses a wide selection of crucial use instances for contemporary companies, starting from community, and software efficiency monitoring, to person expertise, and safety compliance monitoring. By leveraging ThousandEyes’ end-to-end visibility and complete efficiency insights, MSPs can proactively resolve points, optimize community efficiency, and enhance total buyer satisfaction. This not solely minimizes downtime and operational disruptions for the shopper, but additionally positions the MSP as leaders in delivering superior digital experiences.
ThousandEyes Licensing Mannequin
To set the stage for the service creation course of, it’s vital to grasp the licensing parts of ThousandEyes for MSPs trying to combine this highly effective device into their service choices. ThousandEyes licensing is structured round several types of brokers and the consumption related to every. The first license sorts embody Cloud Brokers, Enterprise Brokers, and Endpoint Brokers, every serving distinct monitoring wants.
- Cloud Brokers: These are globally distributed brokers managed by ThousandEyes, splendid for monitoring external-facing purposes and companies. They eat models primarily based on the quantity and frequency of checks performed.
- Enterprise Brokers: Deployed inside a corporation’s personal community, these brokers present visibility into inner community efficiency and software supply. Unit consumption for Enterprise Brokers is decided by the variety of brokers and the amount of checks they carry out.
- Endpoint Brokers: Put in on end-user units, these brokers provide insights into the person expertise from the endpoint perspective. They’re significantly helpful for monitoring distant workforces and distributed environments. Consumption right here relies on the variety of endpoints and the forms of checks executed.
ThousandEyes employs a tiered unit consumption mannequin, enabling MSPs to scale their monitoring capabilities in response to their shoppers’ wants. Every check kind—comparable to HTTP server checks, web page load checks, transaction checks, and community checks—consumes a selected variety of models. The frequency and complexity of those checks additional affect unit consumption. For example, extra frequent or complicated checks will eat extra models.
This tiered method ensures that MSPs can choose the suitable stage of service for his or her shoppers, whether or not they want fundamental monitoring or complete, enterprise-grade options. By understanding and leveraging this versatile licensing construction, MSPs can successfully handle prices, customise their service providing, whereas delivering high-value companies tailor-made to the precise necessities of their clients.
Creating a brand new ThousandEyes managed companies providing includes a number of key steps and concerns. To assist MSPs perceive the service creation course of and the associated thought course of, let’s overview the method at a excessive stage:
- Assess Present Providers and Buyer Demographics:
- Assessment present companies to establish gaps and alternatives for enhancement with ThousandEyes.
- Perceive the shopper base, together with trade challenges, service combine, and goal buyer profiles.
- Brainstorm/Ideation of Enhanced Capabilities:
- Conduct brainstorming classes to combine enhanced capabilities and customer-focused outcomes into the service choices.
- Take into account a “Good-Higher-Greatest” method to deal with varied market segments.
- Design a Tiered Service Mannequin:
- Develop a tiered service mannequin (e.g. Important, Benefit, Premier) to cater to totally different buyer wants and budgets.
- Every tier ought to provide progressively extra superior options and assist.
- Introduce Service Tokens (Non-obligatory):
- Implement a service token system for ad-hoc actions, permitting clients to pool or carry ahead tokens for versatile service consumption.
- Tokens can signify a greenback worth or unit of labor and be provided as a part of the month-to-month cost.
- The service catalog ought to specify the amount of tokens required for varied actions, giving clients a price range for ad-hoc duties with out the necessity for buy orders or requisitions.
- This method can streamline service supply and improve buyer comfort.
- Develop a Enterprise Case:
- Create a complete enterprise case, together with a Service Duty Matrix (SRM) for every service tier.
- Undertake finest practices by clearly defining and scaling the service tiers to fulfill various buyer wants.
Beneath is an instance of service tiers for a ThousandEyes managed companies providing. Use this as a place to begin and customise the providing primarily based on targets:
- Important Tier: Primary CloudApp availability monitoring, customary synthetics (Net-HTTP & Community-Server), automated notifications of service degradation, and 60-minute testing frequency.
- Benefit Tier: Contains all Important options, real-user monitoring for one web site/internet app, agent-less deployment, automated anomaly notifications, and advisory help throughout enterprise hours.
- Premier Tier: Contains all Benefit options, customized app monitoring with common well being checks, enhanced assist and root trigger identification, full workflow instrumentation, and dependency observability for third-party companies.
Key concerns within the service providing ought to embody buyer interplay, scalability, integration with present buyer infrastructure, and sturdy assist choices comparable to a 24/7 assist desk and technical help.
Develop a advertising and gross sales technique by figuring out and concentrating on particular buyer segments that will profit most from the ThousandEyes managed companies. Clearly articulate the worth proposition of every service tier and acknowledge the necessity to prepare the gross sales group on the options and advantages of the brand new service providing, enabling them to grasp the important thing variations between the brand new service providing vs. every other conventional instruments, monitoring capabilities, and/or present service choices.
Lastly, give attention to suggestions and steady enchancment by recurrently amassing and analyzing buyer suggestions to enhance the service. Monitor key efficiency indicators (KPIs) to make sure the service meets buyer expectations, and constantly refine and improve the service primarily based on suggestions and obtainable metrics.
Seizing the Alternative: Reworking MSP Service Choices with ThousandEyes for Consequence-Primarily based Success
By adopting a structured method, MSPs can efficiently develop and launch a brand new ThousandEyes managed companies providing that aligns with buyer wants and generates extra income. Using ThousandEyes is a big step in direction of embracing digital enterprise assurance, remodeling reactive, infrastructure-based operations into proactive, data-driven companies. Managed observability offers deep insights into person experiences by correlating telemetry knowledge, delivering helpful enterprise outcomes. By understanding buyer demographics and desired outcomes, MSPs can design options that increase present provides, unlocking extra worth for purchasers and positioning themselves to capitalize on the rising observability market.
Have interaction your Cisco Account Government or Gross sales Enterprise Improvement Supervisor for a collaborative journey via the service creation course of.
Extra Assets:
- Go to the Cisco Associate Managed Providers SalesConnect web page for recordings of earlier MS VoE classes
- Take a look at my newest blogs for insights into Managed Providers alternatives for MSPs
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