News

August 2010
Business Solutions

I never miss a chance to sit down and chat with Arlin Sorensen, founder of HTG Peer Groups. Not only does he always bring a smile to my face, but he is shares his honest opinion about the concerns and needs of the managed services and VAR space.  

When we sat down at CompTIA Breakaway this year, we revisited the HTG plans to slow growth a tad, and really focus on going deeper with their existing peer networking groups and members. One area that Arlin sees as needing attention is the process that both VARs and MSPs have in place for wooing new customers — and the ongoing struggle many MSPs have with migrating their sales team from product/project sales to managed services. HTG is working on several fronts to help their members tackle those problems, including leveraging sales consultants to educate members, identify members that have successfully changed the way the sell and highlighting their stories, and teaching members to better use the tools found within their PSA software that help automate much of the sales process. 

"Many of them have never used those tools for creating workflow and tracking sales in the pipeline, so we are trying to provide some guidance around better leveraging those tools," says Arlin. "Many times the business owner knows he needs to be better, he just doesn't know how. We're trying to fill that gap."  

If you want to learn more, click here to listen to Arlin share a few more details about the HTG efforts.

July 2010
Channel Advisor

Let’s be clear about the potential of cloud computing. It is going to transform the way businesses consume information technology, similar to how electric utilities once transformed manufacturing.

Instead of having to build and maintain their own local power sources, the rise of electric utilities enabled manufacturers to simply plug into the grid and pay for electricity used. Similarly, most enterprises today, with the help of solution providers, “manufacture” their own IT. But centralized, scalable, on-demand cloud computing provides a utility that can be cheaper, faster and more agile than an on-premise infrastructure. And it frees businesses to focus on their core challenges, rather than maintaining an IT infrastructure.

There has been much hype about cloud computing, of course. As Oracle’s Larry Ellison famously said, “We’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing ... What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane.”

Read more: Pondering The Cloud

June 2010
MSPmentor

I’m going out on a limb just a bit with this blog entry (surprise, surprise). It’s based on insights from only two managed services providers. But both MSPs strongly believe the peer group networking model will someday shift from (A) non-competing geographies to (B) non-competing verticals. Here’s what I mean.

First, a little background: Hundreds of VARs and MSPs participate in peer groups run by HTG, True Profits (anyone have a new URL for them?) and other well-known organizations. The peer groups allow VARs and MSPs to share business and financial information behind closed doors. Participants can measure their success against one another in a confidential manner. And all of the peer group members represent different geographies — ensuring no competitive overlap.

Read more: MSP Peer Groups: Will They Go Vertical?

June 2010
Channelpro

The alliance will enable GreatAmerica to educate solution providers on financing options available to them.

GreatAmerica Leasing Corporation of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, announced today that it has entered into a sponsorship agreement with HTG Peer Groups. HTG is a peer organization based in Harlan, Iowa, comprised of 240 IT solution providers representing the U.S. and international markets. This relationship as a sponsoring vendor of HTG Peer Groups will enable GreatAmerica to educate technology solution providers on options available to integrate financing programs into their approach to market.

Read more: GreatAmerica and HTG Peer Groups Announce Sponsorship Agreement

June 2010
Press Release

BAKERSFIELD, Calif., June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- CharTec, a complete "Hardware as a Service" (HaaS) provider, today announced that its proactive HaaS solution and training increased ARRC Technology's annual revenue and helped the company win the Top Total Revenue award for 2009 in the Infrastructure Managed Services category from Service Leadership Inc. at the recent HTG Summit.

Read more: ARRC, Member of HTG8, Receives Top Revenue Award at HTG Summit