MSPs and resellers want to build new revenue streams within what has become an extremely competitive managed services market. Yet, many remain unaware of one of the most obvious opportunities for creating a profitable new type of offering based on VDI and DaaS – which is good news for those MSPs and resellers who are seeking to differentiate themselves by capitalizing on managed VDI and DaaS services before their competitors can launch their own offerings.
That’s one of the takeaways from our experience at ChannelCon 2022, where the Anunta team spent several days talking to MSPs and resellers from across the world. We came away from the event with an even deeper understanding of what MSPs and resellers need to be successful in today’s ultra-competitive business environment, and how VDI and DaaS can help them do it.
One topic that was constantly on the lips of ChannelCon attendees was hybrid work. MSPs and resellers are keenly aware that the workplace is changing dramatically as businesses embrace work models that involve employees based off-site.
What MSPs and resellers didn’t always recognize, however, was how they can leverage hybrid work as an opportunity for creating new revenue streams by moving their customers to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS).
That’s why we enjoyed talking to ChannelCon attendees about how VDI and DaaS allow businesses to solve the challenges of hybrid work. As we explained, by replacing conventional PCs with virtual desktop sessions that can be hosted either in on-premises data centers or the cloud, VDI and DaaS make it easy to deliver desktop computing resources to workers based in any location.
At the same time, VDI and DaaS technologies offer strong access controls and encryption to ensure that desktop infrastructure remains secure. They also allow businesses to pay for their desktops on a monthly basis, rather than having to make large upfront capital investments. That’s a particularly attractive advantage for companies worried about today’s uncertain economic climate.
These benefits prompted Mark Evans, Anunta’s Manager for Pre-Sales, to note, “With the popularity of hybrid and remote work and the pressing need for secure and scalable digital workplaces, it is critical that resellers and MSPs take advantage of DaaS and its evergreen profitability potential.”
Although hybrid work has created strong demand for VDI and DaaS, we found that many MSPs and resellers whom we talked with remained a bit hesitant to capitalize on this opportunity at first.
The problem wasn’t that they don’t think their customers would benefit from VDI or DaaS. Instead, it’s that they worry that DaaS is too hard for MSPs and resellers to set up and manage on their own.
That’s a valid concern. Designing, deploying and supporting VDI and DaaS environments requires expertise in technologies that not all MSPs and resellers have mastered. They may also be unsure how to sell and market managed VDI and DaaS services.
But as we explained to the prospective partners we talked with, that shouldn’t be a barrier for MSPs and resellers who want to take advantage of the massive opportunity surrounding hybrid work by building managed VDI and DaaS services.
By partnering with Anunta, any MSP or reseller can create managed VDI or DaaS services for their customers without having to spend months learning new technologies and building out new infrastructure.
Through Anunta’s VDI and DaaS partner program, MSPs and resellers get end-to-end services that cover every aspect of managed VDI and DaaS. From design and implementation to day 2 client support, Anunta does it all. We even offer sales and marketing services to help our MSP and reseller partners communicate the value of VDI and DaaS to their clients and prospects.
The MSPs and resellers we spoke with at ChannelCon already know all of the above. But we want to get the message out to the broader community because the opportunity surrounding hybrid work won’t last forever. If you want to build managed VDI and DaaS offerings, you need to do it now, before your competitors beat you to it.
After all, most segments of the MSP and reseller market have a history of becoming saturated relatively quickly. Services like managed backup or managed networking were novel once, too, but it’s now hard to sell them with good profit margins because so many other firms have built competing offerings.
For now, managed VDI and DaaS remain an exception. Our experience at ChannelCon shows that MSPs and resellers are still becoming acquainted with this type of service and the opportunity surrounding it at present.
If you want to get ahead of the pack, contact us to learn more about our VDI and DaaS partner programs. We’ll explain how Anunta can help you launch managed VDI and DaaS that you can have up and running in a matter of weeks, even if you have no background in desktop virtualization or management.