For POS, Managed Services Is Nothing New

Managed Services are a hot topic. If you read the press, you'd think being a Managed Services Provider (MSP) is new. In fact, if you look at mainstream IT Managed Services, it is a relatively new concept. The idea of outsourcing the management of your IT Infrastructure is not something that was done frequently as little as 10 years ago.

But in the Point-of-Sale (POS) world, this concept has existed forever, at least for the companies delivering solutions to the mid-to-small end users. It hasn't been (and isn't) traditionally called Managed Services. Instead, they have typically been called Support Contracts. But, effectively, they are the same thing.

According to Wikipedia, "Managed services (as defined by Dr. Gerard Macioce) is the practice of transferring day-to-day related management responsibility as a strategic method for improved effective and efficient operations. The person or organization who owns or has direct oversight of the organization or system being managed is referred to as the offerer, client, or customer. The person or organization that accepts and provides the managed service is regarded as the service provider.

Typically, the offerer remains accountable for the functionality and performance of managed service and does not relinquish the overall management responsibility of the organization or system."

Well, what is a support contract in the POS world? It is an agreement that, should anything go wrong with a POS system, the end user calls the POS Solution Provider who then fixes it. Effectively, instead of managing their own POS systems, the store or restaurant has decided they can obtain more "effective and efficient operations" by paying the POS Solution Provider to take care of the systems. They are paying for Managed Services.

However, there are a few key ways in which this traditional POS support contract offering differs from today's vision of Managed Services.

• Under the support contract model, the delivery of service starts when the end user detects a problem AND CALLS. It is a reactive situation where the end user has to experience pain and let the POS Solution Provider know about it. Today, MSPs are expected to be more proactive. While not every problem can be detected ahead of time, the expectation is that most (and, frankly, all of the common issues) are addressed proactively, before their is any end user impact.
• Unlike mainstream MSPs, POS Solution Providers don't just care if the infrastructure is up and the application is running. They care about the processing of the application as well. As the complete solution provider, not just the company responsible for ensure that it is up, they are responsible, or at a minimum care, that the application functions properly when running.
• POS end users, especially the smaller enterprises, are traditionally cost-averse. They would shutter at paying a thousand dollars per month per site for IT services.

Well, there is some exciting news for the POS world. ScanSource Virtual Technician (SSVT), powered by the Vigilix remote monitoring technology, is a hosted remote monitoring and management solution built specifically for the POS Solution Provider. As a hosted solution, you can get started quickly and with very little initial investment.

In addition, the SSVT team has already built monitoring templates (predefined lists of what should be monitored) for many of the key POS Applications on the market (MICROS, Digital Dining, Aloha, Retail Pro to name a few). The benefit? You can start monitoring you customers immediately without having to figure out what to monitor. That work has already been done for you.

Finally, SSVT is priced around the realities of being a POS Solution Provider. SSVT is priced at a point that allows you to simply include it in every support contract, transforming your support contracts from being reactive to proactive without adding significant costs.

Of course, you don't just sign up for SSVT and become proactive. SSVT is simply a tool and, as with any tool, if left unused it adds no value. More importantly, if used incorrectly (like using a hammer to put in screws), it can do more harm than good. But having the tool available is an important first step.