In this episode, Neil Warwick (Head of Technical Transformation at Predatar) and Steve Miller (CTO), join Alistair Mackenzie for a discussion on services design.

Neil has been at the forefront of complex technical systems but its not all been plain sailing, as he shares his experience of Marconi's missteps to his work on the "Betamax" of the data storage industry.

Steve argues for maintaining the human aspect of customer service and the likely impact of artificial intelligence.

Their personal journeys have cultivated the experience needed to help partners design scalable MSP offerings, as technology becomes a tool to deliver great service, not an end in itself.

It's well worth a listen!

In this episode we are joined by Predatar CTO, Steve Miller. Steve looks back over his career as a managed services professional to discuss the services evolution from mainframe to micro-services.

As break-fix managed services suffer commoditisation, Steve makes the case for data-driven, customer focused service delivery to enable business transformation, not just outsourcing.

Using examples from his personal life, Steve encourages us to embark on continuous, life-long learning to "future-proof" ourselves, raise the bar and embrace, not run away from, automation and AI.

The episode ends with a sneak peek into the upcoming Predatar Lynx release, the service operating system for MSPs who want to rapidly scale their business.

Depending on their individual situation, there are several different ways businesses might approach IT VAR transformation. Some businesses may decide to part transform or become 100% MSP, whilst others may decide to spin out a separate business or, if the funds are available, acquire a ready-made business.  Whilst there is no silver bullet, it’s worth noting that companies who decide to try and run both models simultaneously could prolong the transformation more than it needs to, resulting in more cash being burned and the company never getting to the finish line.  

Whatever path a business decides to take, whether it’s through acquisition or building from within, an invisible force is at work - culture.  CEOs need to understand that they are the keepers of the business culture and must duly recognise and address the ‘so what’ question. 

With any change, employees across the business will ask: how does this matter to me? How will this impact my role?  Therefore, internal communication and having absolute clarity around the ‘so what’ factor is critical so that employees understand how this change matters to them as individuals.

Re-wiring a business in response to evolving market demands is never going to be an easy feat, even when businesses have the luxury of time and significant cash reserves to draw on.  So, when a business needs to transform at pace because its competition is hot on its heels and it fears missing out, the pressure quickly intensifies.  

This is one of the big challenges facing business leaders who are trying to navigate through the rugged terrain of today’s saturated and hyper-competitive IT channel landscape.  Despite best efforts to embark upon this expedition, senior management teams within traditional VAR businesses that are looking to take advantage of the profitable MSP world, are finding it hard to get past first base. 

In this episode, we highlight the top four fundamental priorities that leaders must pay attention to or risk getting lost in the fog or worse, failing completely.