In this post, we’re continuing our theme of vertical market success for MSPs. In a densely populated industry, making your business stand out is more than a challenge. One potentially successful approach is to specialize in a particular vertical market. This way, you acquire specific knowledge and expertise about the objectives, processes, and IT issues related to that type of business. You become an expert and specialist rather than a generalist. Our first guide on the topic, The MSP Guide to Vertical Market Success, goes deeper into the benefits of vertical markets and the initial steps needed to specialize.  

In our follow-up guide, we dive into the professional services industry from an MSP perspective. With over 428,000 companies in the US alone offering professional services, this vertical represents a very important and attractive market for IT products and services. We just released The MSP Guide to Vertical Success: Spotlight on Professional Services, and in it you will learn why you should focus on the professional services industry, how to add value to these businesses, and how to successfully approach them.

An attractive target market

The professional services industry is a broad category with many sub-segments, including legal, accounting, and financial services, that often rely heavily on technology to reach their business goals. The vast majority of these companies however, in fact almost 90%, have fewer than 10 employees. It is therefore likely that they have insufficient technical expertise to self-manage their IT infrastructure and are looking for the right MSP. In our guide, we share the results of a recent study concerning the budgets and future plans of this field.

Supporting professional services

In many cases, technology directly supports the professional services company’s business objectives. Modernizing aging computers, for example, directly improves employee productivity. In other cases, technology may be one element in a series of operational improvements designed to improve efficiency.

Beyond productivity and operational impacts, technology clearly supports ongoing, ever-evolving security issues. Investments in security software and storage may also be warranted to better support industry-specific compliance issues. There are several government-imposed regulations throughout the world that affect the professional services industry, as we discuss further in our guide, and these companies could use the guidance of MSP experts.

How to approach professional services

Most professional services organizations consider technology to be an expense. To successfully convince them of your added value, you need to be well-prepared. Understanding how they are currently using IT to support their business goals will be critical in winning a new professional services client. In our guide, we arm you with the right questions to ask to understand how your MSP can best help the organization and to prove to the organization that you have its best interests in mind.

As an MSP, you have several opportunities to add value to professional services companies. Beyond productivity and operational impacts, MSPs can help these organizations address   their security issues. Read The MSP Guide to Vertical Success: Spotlight on Professional Services, and let’s work together to make your MSP business soar.