What is the biggest opportunity for IT Service Providers and Consultants today, in light of COVID-19?
I got this question from a reader named Rob the other day. The full question is actually a bit more detailed and revealed a lot more about the author of the question–so I’ve only included an abridged version that pulls out the heart of the inquiry that I’m addressing here today:
Alex, You seem approachable (I mean, for an IT guy, and a real, actual person) …I am curious about your statement about (paraphrased) moving small businesses to the cloud for about a decade… I now see a real opportunity of putting people’s businesses in the cloud, especially in the harsh glare of a pandemic. I bought an M365 Business sub and am walking through an experiment standing up a WVD cluster in Azure and wondered, what do you see as the biggest opportunity right now? I’m looking at Windows Multiuser plus M365 plus the new Microsoft Voice and thinking, you could put any small business in the cloud, totally Microsoft, voice and data. What are you concentrating on right now? What do you see as the big opportunity? The best direction?
I had a couple of other readers send in similar questions to this, and I’ve been thinking about how to best respond. Here’s my first go at it–and I will have more to say about all of this soon, as I have a project I’m working on related to this line of thinking.
Lesson #1: Cloud-based architecture is the only architecture
Yes, if it wasn’t already obvious, this pandemic has really highlighted the full power and necessity of the cloud. So many people had to transition quickly to remote work scenarios that could be provisioned and ready to go within hours or days, not weeks or months. Technologies like Zoom, Teams and other online platforms saw an explosion in usage in just a few short days. And yes, all of the Microsoft cloud products you mention are therefore ripe for new opportunities:
- Virtual Desktop-as-a-Service (WVD)
- Managed Security as-a-Service with Microsoft 365 Business Premium and other add-ons (MCAS, MDATP, etc.)
- Microsoft 365 Business Voice (full cloud-based phone system and calling plans from MSFT–or offer direct routing)
- Collaboration and Productivity with Microsoft Teams
- Power Suite: PowerBI, PowerAutomate, PowerApps, etc.
So my answer is that you can walk down any of these paths and find plenty of opportunities to help small businesses–plenty of work that will keep you busy and learning for several years to come. On the other hand, it also means that the cloud trend is no longer “news”–the writing is on the wall for everyone to read plain and clear: the traditional IT infrastructure and support days are over.
Even if the pandemic situation lifts up in a few months–every small business out there is still going to be doing everything they can to reduce their reliance on “in-person” and “location-tethered” services. Old-world remote access like VPN, Remote Desktop, etc.–these things are second-class citizens in a cloud-first, mobile-first world. I’ve been saying that for several years already, but this is the nail in the coffin–I don’t think we’re ever going backwards–and I do believe that cloud-based architecture is the only form of computing and technology that small businesses are likely to be buying from here on forward.
Lesson #2: Plan to specialize–and find your sweet spot
It is true, as you have pointed out, that I have been with a lot of this “next wave” stuff for a while, yet even I will have to specialize at some point in the not too distant future. It’s all moving very quickly, and it is no longer possible to “know it all” (and I’m in the unfortunate position of having been a know-it-all for years, so yes–I am struggling to adjust myself). So pick something for yourself, then develop relationships with your co-workers, partners and the wider community for the rest.
And that is the true opportunity, I think. You have to find what it is that you are most likely to be successful at. So the question you asked me, I would turn around and re-present back to you. This doesn’t have to be a difficult thing–just try to align your interests, your skills and what you hear the market asking for. Consider this simple Venn Diagram:
I am sure this is not original–I almost assuredly stole this from somewhere in my mental bank of past images, but you get the idea. The best-case scenario is when you can align all three–solve real problems for others (e.g. providing a valuable service), while being employed with something you’re good at, and hopefully you find said thing to be interesting or engaging as well. Even if you don’t hit that sweet spot immediately you can often work your way into it by starting with something that motivates you (even if you’re unskilled) or something that you already know a lot about (even if that’s not your passion).
Now anything which overlaps in the red area is ripe for keeping busy, helping people, and making money–and right now in the world of technology services this means all things cloud, all things remote work. And all the small businesses out there that aren’t doing it yet or haven’t quite figured out how to pivot to serving their customers in a new way will need your help! Not to mention all the new micro and small businesses that will be starting up in the next few months in response to this global event, as people who are displaced from other industries find new ways of getting by (many of them online).
So I sincerely doubt that it will be difficult to find opportunity in the foreseeable future. The challenge for you, then, is finding the right opportunities for you. I could say that I see Microsoft Teams as the best opportunity and place to focus. But that might only be true for me–not necessarily for you. You might see an opportunity to provide a world-class desktop-as-a-service leveraging WVD and Azure/M365. I’m personally not interested in that technology at all–but don’t let my opinions stop you from pursuing something that you might be really great at. As long as you can solve real problems for real people, then your path is legit.
Lesson #3: Take a risk
If you have a strong interest in something that you know is needed in the marketplace, like virtual desktops or cloud-enabled voice services, but you lack skills in this area, then your first step is to fast-track your learning so that you can actually deliver a good (or “good enough”) product to the marketplace. Remember also that times of great challenge are times of great opportunity, and that means it is also a good time to take risks. Why? Because the typical response to events like the one we find ourselves in right now are to hunker down, be conservative, be frugal, hedge bets, and distance ourselves from risk as much as possible.
So don’t follow the crowd. I would argue that now is not the time to play it safe. Safe is going away. It’s time to make your own safety. So no, you don’t have to have it all figured out before you get moving–don’t worry unnecessarily about the skills. The statement “fortune favors the bold” tends to be true disproportionately more often during unsettling times.
Not only do you have Microsoft Learn, and several resources made specifically by Microsoft for the SMB, but also sites like mine (and those of many other MVP’s and community members) are ripe with learning materials. Besides, the best learning is experience–nothing else will advance your skills the same way (as well, experience will help you build more confidence).
Conclusion
I know that is sort of a non-answer to the original question. But if I had to distill it quickly, I would suggest:
- You can’t do it all yourself–so pick one or two cloud technologies you want to be great at, and get great at those while helping others
- Partner up with other people who can be great in the areas you don’t have the time or inclination to be great in yourself (but which you know your customers will still want)
- Take risks, be bold, be authentic (and get started right away)!
To that end, I am personally seeking some partnerships of my own right now. If you have a pitch for me–something you are very good at (and can prove it with customer testimonials, etc.)–let me know. I’m especially interested in finding folks who are good at PowerApps, PowerAutomate and PowerBI. As well, voice (Skype/Teams). As well, desktop support for basic stuff like Windows and Office apps (remote). These are things I’m not likely to learn or offer people myself but I get a fair number of questions in these other areas. Therefore, I would like to have a good referral network in place. Help me build it!
Comments (14)
No way on the Cloud.
The number of restrictions on deployment in the Cloud is crimping many a business at this time.
Our on-premises clients are humming along other than the bandwidth issues we’re seeing due to strain where strain hasn’t been before.
On-prem is going to be all but dead in 3-5 years in the SMB space. There is simply no argument for it. The cloud hasn’t been too slow for me and my customers–so not sure what you’re referring to. Sure, we had some wait time and scaled back features while provisioning certain services when everyone wanted to leap into Teams or similar on the same day, but it is still much faster and smoother than bringing new services online in a traditional datacenter. As well, the COVID response is a completely abnormal spike in on-boarding; but guess what? When that on-boarding spike is over, everything hums along just fine–the scale is absolutely there. Don’t let confirmation bias ruin you–on-prem will continue to dwindle and those who offer managed services around cloud infra will continue to pull ahead, leaving the others behind.
This is what some people have been saying for the last ten years, that the cloud will reign supreme and on prem is dead, yet still hasn’t happened. Thanks, but no thanks.
The future at least for me is hybrid cloud, get the best of both worlds and have a DR plan that can move everything to the cloud or on prem as needed. Americans tend to forget the trigger happy presidents that one day can call for a country-wide or company targeted embargo that can destroy you overnight. You can’t rely on external and unaccountable companies to be there when you need them for everything. Google and other brands have screwed too many companies and you can’t do anything about that if one day for whatever reason you get kicked from their service. The ammount of power you give to cloud providers is frightening sometimes.
Well, you never know what could happen I guess. What if? What if it’s all a big lie and giving up your data to that cloud provider is one more step toward slavery to the machine? Yeah. Could be. Anything is possible. But, I like to believe at least, not probable.
I think it personally it has to do the finances of the SMB company itself, the expectant budget of IT, and what the company already has. Most SMB budgets on IT is extremely tight if anything , if the on-prem infrastructure is already there, then I do not see a switch no matter what comes down the pike. For WVD, you are just moving the on prem headache to the cloud (servers and the desktops in place). I know a couple of SMB that their budget is extremely thin and having them spend on desktop instances and servers when they have servers in place, is too much to spend and would rather have someone still managing them. If on the other hand, the SMB didn’t have the infrastructure or was in the replacement of their server infrastructure, i can see azure and O365 being a replacement. I have seen too many SMB where if they have servers they do not want to replace them until they die, and will rather pay someone or IT to keep them up versus replacing them.
–Tracy
I agree with you about WVD–too expensive IMO to basically just move old world to the cloud. But I haven’t talked to one customer who is keen on keeping infrastructure refreshes rolling when they learn the alternative is a USD 20/user/month subscription in the cloud for all productivity, file storage, email, management and security, etc. Even if they have to buy some other LOB app in the cloud like Salesforce or some other CRM/Accounting/ERP suite, it’s usually still better than another hardware upgrade project. So even if there are a few out there now remaining, holding on to the past–it won’t last. Give this another 3-5 years, the Windows server stuff will dry up in our market.
Let’s have a look at some history shall we?
2008: Microsoft BPOS: Messaging: IT Pros On-Premises is Dead! All in the cloud.
2012: Microsoft O365: Messaging: Same
2019: Microsoft Azure: Messaging: Hybrid, hybrid, hybrid!
On-Premises will never be dead. There are too many workloads that just won’t run in the cloud. Microsoft’s messaging has changed within the last year because they have finally realized what we boots on the ground have known all along.
We worked with a company on Azure Stack HCI setups for their image and data intensive business. They posited Azure as a possible option before we were involved. They put their entire business into Azure using a substantial sub six digit credit. They burned through it in three days. That monthly bill would have been seven figures. That’s one heck of a nice Azure Stack HCI Setup in one shot at half the cost of one month in Azure … easily.
SMB can hybridize to some degree with the exception of those that are conscious about cash flow. That monthly nut, CapEx, makes cloud unattractive.
Plus, ultimately, there _is_ a server involved somewhere. Cloud is just my stuff on somebody else’s stuff despite how marketing talks about “serverless” vapourware.
That’s the other catch: Where is my data?
Well time will tell, won’t it. Don’t get me wrong, in the enterprise on-prem will be a around a long time. But guess what? I literally haven’t talked with a single SMB in my time working in this market who wouldn’t LOVE to kick their server to the curb. Every single customer is begging to be rid of it, and wants cloud only in the worst way. For years being in the data center business was a necessary evil that they are all too happy to part with. So keep your head in the sand if you like. But the days of Windows Server in the SMB are numbered (why do you think they aren’t doing any more releases??)
Alex,
I’m not so sure about the “head in the sand” comment?
We have an entire business built on on-premises solutions for SMB through to SME to Enterprise.
That need has not abated despite all of the marketing Kool-Aid around Cloud since that initial messaging in 2008.
We are running a migration of Small Business Server 2011 with the Premium Add-On this weekend to our SBS (Small Business Solution) based on the Microsoft stack with a better than SBS Std solution set because our numbers came in less than cloud all-in. Plus, the business owner liked having things where they could see them and a real person to talk to that could push the buttons and adjust the dials if something needed work.
Cloud support is dismal. Just because it’s our neck on the line doesn’t mean nothing to the hyper-cloud companies. Their support, or lack there of in reality, makes for a great amount of frustration. So, we lose a customer while they move on to another neck to choke … but get exactly the same dismal support experience because it’s ultimately the cloud vendor’s support that fails. We’re but one of hundreds of thousands, millions even.
It’s precisely because our messaging has not changed that we are being approached by folks, such as one where our only competitor said, “We don’t do Exchange because it’s too hard”. Literally. Wow. Just Wow. We won that deal too.
Don’t get me wrong, cloud has its place.
I don’t believe it’s to run an entire business. Cost wise, an all-in-the-cloud setup is always a lot more expensive. Plus, in times like now, on-premises means the ability to pull back on maintenance costs until things settle down. Cash Flow is King to a small business. That monthly nut is hard to escape when cash flow goes away when everything is out there somewhere in the clouds.
Hey, if it is working for you keep at it! Plenty of our customers are 100% in the cloud now with their business. Think about ANY new SMB starting up out there. Are they looking to buy into a bunch of equipment? Hell no. But they can swing 20/user/month to get rolling with email, productivity, file sharing, security.
The SMB generally doesn’t want or need to be in the server business–it’s always been a necessary evil. Capex is usually not something they enjoy doing, with rare exception (if they have the lump sums to throw around and want the depreciation maybe–but even then they might spend that on something OTHER than a server if they can avoid it). Most of our SMB customers end up doing a lease anyway, with or without buy-out option. But if you are looking at multiple thousands of dollars outlay versus a simple 20/user/month license? It’s a no brainer. WAY less over time and not hard to pay on monthly or annual basis.
We don’t do Exchange server not because it is difficult–we still have plenty of people with skill in this area. But because it’s stupid. Why would you spend so much more money to host that workload on-prem? If you actually spec’d out what it would take to give the same availability and security to a small business—they aren’t going to buy two datacenters worth of redundant servers attached to shared storage/SAN with WAN failover between disparate geographical regions. No way. Not if they are a small org. Enterprise maybe, they might even already have some of this infra in place to build on. But not SMB.
Email especially, and now file sharing too–it’s a commodity service, and you can do so much better with it in the cloud, security and compliance is actually easier and faster, too. If you have people who are skilled in working with the technology then support is not a big deal, and you can still deliver top quality service without even involving MS support. There is very little they don’t give you control over, and they aren’t able to do much either beyond what is exposed to you anyway. If there is a service interruption of some kind there is no reason to call support either–if there is a service incident active then having you bother them about it will not make the resolution come any faster. So I suggest you get skilled up in this area if you think the support sucks, that just means you have to build your own support up so that customers have a better experience (since your engineers know the ins and outs of the cloud architecture and how to work with it).
You are not the first person I’ve come across who thinks the cloud is all just a big marketing scam basically. But the truth is that it is where the marketplace wants to go. This evolution was inevitable and the folks who have made the leap are glad to be rid of the on-prem headaches. VPN, Remote Desktop, ISP outages, power outages, etc.–these things concern not the cloud customer. You can get access from anywhere and on every type of device. No weird VPN or Remote Desktop connections needed. If you need a new instance of something, then it’s ready immediately, not hours or days or weeks later. That’s the appeal–the value add to the business–it is not measured in the bits and bytes and not the capex/opex, nor even, in the category of service/support. But as I said you can give plenty good support if you put in the work.
Now I don’t think that I am alone when I think of people who sell boxes to SMB customers as dinosaurs, head in the sand, whatever you want to call it. Because the extinction is inevitable. Yes–as the market dries up you will probably be able to continue finding companies who just want you to replace what they had before with something very much like it and NOT change. Certain verticals will go away after others and so forth. But Digital transformation is a real thing, and it’s happening. Train has left the station. New companies being born today aren’t looking at purchasing hardware–if they are, I pity them. They will pay many times more for it, and be no better off.
Wow Alex, that’s one huge Marketing pull right there. That’s pat that! :0)
Microsoft has been hiring in on-premises related areas lately. Specifically around Windows Admin Centre, Azure Stack HCI, and Windows Server.
I’m thinking on-premises ain’t so dead yet a la Monty Python. ;)
That’s true it isn’t dead. Not yet, and it will take time. Especially in the Enterprise. But the writing is on the wall in the SMB.
That’s OK guys, I’m sure your buggy whip business will be around for a long, long time. ;)
I think where you are in this spirited discussion depend on a couple of things. Are you looking for opportunities to retire technical debt and get disparate focuses aligned to something new or are you pretty happy with your on prem architecture, now and into the future; it’s the now and into the future part that is the important piece of this discussion. If your are transitioning to a cloud orientation WVD offers a number of opportunities to get there. Regarding WVD, I wouldn’t view it as a “so what” technology. If you’ve moved much of your data or are planning to move workloads to Azure, it offers a compelling solution for App, and Desktops, and could provide a way to enable a remote workforce whos largest workload is already Microsoft 365 a compelling solution that lowers internal dependence on legacy, Hardware, and infrastructure. There will always be some people that feel the way ahead is already in place. For the most part I agree with Alex, Microsoft’s investment in on-prem is probably static, or at least not the #1 priority. I would think a significant and increasing portions of their business growth is being driven by Azure and Microsoft 365. In almost every space, security, productivity, IaaS and PaaS this appears to be the case. Microsoft is following the money and in our world so are we. I look for MSP opportunities on things I can more easily manage.