Does a managed services model work for integrators?

YARMOUTH, Maine—As the industry moves to more of a managed services model — PSA's Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) program is a good example of that — this month's News Poll looks at what companies are doing to increase their overall RMR through this type of business model.

When asked, “Is your company moving to more of a managed service, RMR-type model?” more than half (53 percent) of respondents said yes, with another 29 percent saying “somewhat” and only 18 percent saying no.

Most of the respondents (71 percent) agreed that an MSSP-type managed service model has potential in the commercial market, with another 18 percent seeing “some potential” and just 12 percent saying the model is “not a good fit.”

When looking at what are the greatest challenges moving to this type of model, 53 percent said, “not enough time and/or resources,” with “finding the right sales people” and “creating the right compensation plan for sales” splitting the remaining votes.

"Technology still has not caught up with customer expectations for hosted video monitoring," said one respondent. "Bandwidth requirement and reliance on customer supplied and supported networks can be problematic. However does result in upfront equipment savings for customer, which is desired."

“Overall PSA-MSSP is a good model to work with,” noted Sarvesh Dubey director SCI Securities Services, noting challenges such as inadequate availability of required skilled manpower, low wages and lack of awareness of career opportunities in security as barriers to its success. “This sector can not grow unless we can change the mindset of the personnel towards their job profile. Once it is done we can very well say there is plenty of scope for MSSP business model.”

Another respondent agreed, saying, “To really manage something like that requires someone that CAN manage it; i.e. has the expertise needed to manage the services. Unless we signed up a company with enough services to manage that would be significant enough to hire someone to do so, it is just another thing for me to do.”

As one respondent pointed out, the key is “creating the right RMR/MSSSP Plans and then training sales to implement it in their daily conversations with customers.”