Credit: Photo 10045519 © Bernard Zajac - Dreamstime.com
However, not all challenges to the MSP have resulted in success. For example, developing the brand’s identity from an individual out to a team proved to be particularly difficult for Steel.
“With any business when it starts, there is an individual who is doing everything from sales to execution. This creates an incredible amount of trust to that person with clients,” he said.
“As the team grows, there is a process of ensuring that this trust is replicated to new members of the team, otherwise it becomes a huge barrier to scaling the operations.
“This is incredibly hard in a market where personal relationships are a strong component of the buy decision, and we’re working hard to ensure that clients shift their trust from ‘I know Ben can deliver this so I’ll call him’ to ‘I trust that Ben has recruited the right person and given them the processes to solve my problem.’”
He added that while this can complicate the process, developing that team-based trust results in a consistent customer experience.
“We want our technical ability to be shared, not concentrated into a single hero,” Steel said.
To the future
Looking back at the over the last 20 years of operation, there are a few things Steel wishes he could do over.
First on his list was seeking out input on developing the Envisage team at an earlier stage.
“I would have received professional advice sooner and invested in upskilling staff before the skill set was required,” he said.
“Stepping back from day to day operations was a key to growing our business and I would have done this earlier.
“Documentation of process would have been something I would have liked to have completed earlier as well.”
As the role of technology becomes ever-increasingly important in the world, so too does the role of the businesses that base their business on said technology, just like Envisage.
“We see the future of our role to be ensuring that we are sweeping the horizon for technology that could either power up or disrupt our client’s businesses and helping them manage the pace of change in their organisations to ensure they are maximising the benefits of new technology without impacting their team’s ability to adopt new tools, all the while ensuring that the base level of their technology just works,” Steel said.
“Digital is becoming central to so many areas of business that more and more consultants are delivering technology solutions; accountants are positioning themselves as cloud experts thanks to Xero and HR consultants are using software-as-a-service tools to deliver the outcomes.
“If MSPs are too focused on answering the phones and selling Microsoft 365, they might miss the bigger problems their clients are seeking to solve.”
Moving forward, Steel concluded that his MSP has the right technology skills; it’s just a matter of getting better at “simplifying technology for our clients and helping them see how it can simplify their businesses.”
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