The Utility Company™ Powers Up at Xchange ‘06
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Industry visionary launches new company that looks to take the small and medium business market and the IT channel beyond managed services.
August 14, 2006, Ottawa, Canada and St. Louis, Missouri - Today, The Utility Company will be introduced to the North American channel and media at CMP Xchange ’06 in St. Louis. The launch of Utility sees founder Mark Scott moving from software vendor to the IT services side of the small and medium business (SMB) market. In 2000, he co-founded N-able Technologies®, a managed services software vendor that spearheaded the channel’s move to the managed service provider (MSP) model. Today, the "business transformation" channel model he architected as CEO of N-able has been adopted by most of the vendors in the market. Scott’s latest venture looks to evolve the market, once again.
The Utility Company is the leading supplier of information technology delivered as a utility service to small and medium businesses, providing the required hardware, software and service for a monthly per user fee.
The Utility Company was founded to address the key issues (barriers) in the managed services industry today for:
- Service providers the cost of people, process and technology to profitably deliver managed/utility services.
- SMB customers address today’s technology requirements that are evolving from IT operations to a business productivity focus.
"As the technology industry makes its titanic shift towards a service-centric model, managed services will need to evolve dramatically from where it is today, which is basically a new label for IT services," said Mark Scott, President of The Utility Company. "It is the SMB market that is best suited for the utility model, because they are not as deeply invested in technology and data centers as the enterprise. We see the market evolving from ‘element’ to ‘user’ to ‘usage’-based IT".
"Having reviewed the new business with Mark, I have no doubt that it will be successful and offers some much needed depth to managed services in the SMB market," said Charles Weaver, President of the MSP Alliance. "As one of our original board members, Mark has been an industry thought-leader and it will be interesting to see the impacts of him moving to the services side of the market".
Connected Office™
Utility’s position is that today’s MSPs are too focused on technology operations and not enough on business productivity. We are at a point that it is a “given” that operational tools like desktops, the network and Internet should work, therefore this is of diminishing value to businesses. This has impeded the adoption of managed services by end customers despite all the hype about it in the channel. Utility has addressed this through a service program for SMB’s called Connected Office, which addresses the three key areas for a business: operations, communications and management.
"In our opinion these are the three core reasons a business invests in technology, which moves the focus from plumbing to content," added Scott. "Unfortunately, people don’t connect the dots and understand this to leverage technology to better execute, automate and manage key business processes like sales, marketing and customer service. How many places do people input or obtain customer data from? How often do small businesses update their website or leverage e-business techniques to market themselves?"
The Connected Office service suite is packaged in three program levels:
- Classic - "a la carte" proactive service offering priced monthly by service element.
- Managed - user-based, fixed fee service and support with "a la carte" software and hardware.
- Utility - user-based, fixed fee for hardware, software and service.
To achieve on the goal of connecting the office, Utility’s philosophy is that mission-critical services, such as Exchange, business applications and data protection should typically be virtualized (hosted). Any company under 100 employees should normally have a network only for collaboration (communication), to print, and to get access to the Internet – all other infrastructure and applications should generally be centralized at a utility. This reduces onsite support down to the desktop, thus greatly reducing ongoing support costs as well as eliminating large upfront technology infrastructure and software expenditures.
Connected Office 2.0 will be generally released to market on September 6, 2006.
Beyond Managed Services™
Beyond Managed Services is an evolutionary franchise opportunity to address the adoption issue and also the investment (and time) required to become an MSP. In fact, the goal of the program is to take the channel beyond managed services to utility services.
Today, there is likely no single business model more applicable to franchising then managed/utility services, due to the overriding requirement for a complete business system. The Utility franchise includes the people, process and technology to offer the Connected Office service suite, while allowing service providers to maintain the benefits of being an independent entity. Utility’s view is that most service providers are busy enough running their current business to take on the investment of resources required to offer managed/utility services.
"What we are doing for our franchisees is removing most of the risk and the time requirement out of the model and creating a process-driven, annuity-based service business with a target 20% net profit margin," stated Janice Siddons, VP & GM of The Utility Company and 2006 CRN Channel Chief. "Our ultimate goal with the Utility Service Network is to create the standard in consumption-based IT services for the SMB market, and build brand and franchise value through the sum of our parts".
The Beyond Managed Services franchise opportunity includes a complete business system along with front and back office support, including:
- Sales - inside sales support, sales management, customer events.
- Marketing - programs, collateral, campaigns, PR, Utility Service Provider (USP) locator.
- CRM - centralized customer relationship management.
- Administration - documentation, operations guide, HR assistance.
- Finance - billing, collection, tax, leasing; monthly franchise report.
- Service management - policies, procedures, best practices.
- Help desk - end user technical support.
- NOC - centralized operations, dispatch and management tools.
- Utility Service Center - remote support portal for end user self-help, ticketing and remediation.
- Utility Vehicle - branded Mini leased by USP.
- Utility U training - franchisee and end user.
- Vendor relations - centralized procurement and administration.
The objective over the next 15 months is to establish 100 Utility Service Provider franchises. The company plans to be very selective in bringing a new franchisee on board, with the primary goal to develop healthy franchises that can generate $1M in annual utility service revenues within 3 years.
"When you hear terms in the market like ‘reactive managed services’ and ‘managed time’ it certainly makes you wonder what direction the industry is going," concluded Scott. "The Utility Company’s goal is to take the market to the next level and evolve IT into what it should be - a utility".
About The Utility Company™
The Utility Company™ the leader in Technology-as-a-Service™, delivers information technology as a utility to small and medium-sized businesses, providing the required hardware, software and service for a monthly fee per user. Our Connected Office™ service suite empowers people to properly leverage technology to operate, communicate and manage their business more effectively to increase productivity, performance and ultimately profit. Our customers are supported by the Utility Service Network delivering on-site service across North America – technology sales and service professionals can review the Beyond Managed Services™ franchise opportunity on our website. Learn how to make technology work for your business today at www.theutilitycompany.com
For more information contact:
Aaron Bradley
Marketing Manager
1-866-My-Utility ext.7675
abradley@theutilitycompany.com
