By Justin Lee, theWHIR.com
October 27, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — With managed services gaining steam as a vital element of the Web hosting business, new and existing service providers have been regularly launching managed services in recent months. Unfortunately, many of these same MSPs have compromised the quality of their services to cash in on a thriving industry.
In response, the MSP Alliance (mspalliance.com), a global organization of managed service providers and service-enabling technology vendors, recently introduced the Managed Services Accreditation Program.
As the first program of its kind, the MSAP is designed to ensure that managed services customers received the highest quality available from a MSP. The program gauges the maturity, stability and thoroughness of the MSP’s services.
“We wanted to provide a standard for the industry so that any end user that sees an MSP with this accreditation will have a little more certainty that they are getting a company that gets this model,” says Charles Weaver, MSP Alliance’s president.
For an administrative fee of $649, MSP Alliance members can enroll in the accreditation program.
The company is then assessed by MSPAlliance Advisory Board members, comprised of industry executives that have worked for several years on the Accreditation Program, to create a wide base of criteria. These areas include financial stability, facilities, managed services practices, and customer satisfaction.
If the MSP meets or exceeds the required MSPA standards score of 70 percent, it will receive MSAP accreditation. Members are required to renew their certification every year.
Weaver contends that many of the new MSPs that have emerged in the past year have “cheapened the industry” with their poor quality, cutting corners in their practice.
“We are extremely susceptible to new vendors coming into the industry,” says Weaver, “but we want to ensure that all those companies coming in understand that this is not just something where you can buy into a program and the next day you’re an MSP. It’s a little more complicated, a little more involved than that.”
So far, four managed service providers from across the nation have met the requirements of the program, achieving full certification, including FusionStorm, Champion Solutions Group, AimNet Solutions, and Altoria Solutions.
Any MSPAlliance member company that provides managed services is illegible for entry into the MSAP program to complete the full assessment. Several other companies have enrolled in the MSAP program and are currently waiting for their feedback, areas of improvement and overall scores.
“We’re getting more activity and interest from end users - people who are interested in using managed services and managed service providers – as they begin to understand that our members are very serious about this business and want to make sure that it remains a viable business model.”
