It’s that time of the year again: the holidays are upon us, and the new year is only a few weeks away.
While business operations may be winding down, December is the perfect time for managed service providers (MSPs) to reflect on their wins and losses in 2024 and proactively start planning for the future.
By getting a jump start now, you can stay ahead of the competition. Here are three things that you can do to prepare for 2025:
- Thoroughly Review Your Budget
- Identify Operational Efficiencies
- Reassess Vendor and Product Relationships
1. Thoroughly Review Your Budget
The key area in budgeting is defining success and aligning your budget accordingly, whether leveraging new sales strategies or targeting new sets of customers.
A thorough review of your budget can put you on track to identify critical goals, prioritize upcoming projects, and scope out the need for resources across the business to support these strategic initiatives.
Ask yourself: What areas do I want to invest in this year to gain a competitive edge? With business spending on generative AI surging 500 percent in 2024, this may be one technology to consider.
Another important part of reviewing your budget is ensuring you have the right input from different teams across the organization. Collaboration with various departments guarantees that you are approaching your goals in a way that comprehensively addresses your business needs.
2. Identify Operational Efficiencies
Operational efficiencies can put MSPs on track to achieve wider profit margins and gain higher customer satisfaction — and this month is the perfect time to pinpoint what has worked so far for your business.
Implement process mapping as a way to identify the operational efficiencies in your business. It is a tactic for visually charting out workflows, and it can help you better understand the following factors:
- Any gaps in collaboration or specific bottlenecks in processes that hindered an outcome
- How resources are being used in your business, whether they are improving productivity, and if the result aligns with your strategy
- Specific areas where you can potentially streamline operations or introduce automation to drive efficiencies in the future
3. Reassess Vendor and Product Relationships
Now is a good time to contemplate the benefits or challenges behind your existing vendor and product relationships. Where do you expect those partnerships to go in the coming year?
Start by reevaluating what you hope to gain from your overall business relationships in the new year, whether that is helping you to deliver services without disruptions, saving money, or improving customer satisfaction.
While looking at specific relationships, several pieces come into play, so it’s important to ask yourself the following questions:
- Are customers satisfied with the quality of products?
- Is the cost of the product manageable? Do you anticipate vendors to raise or lower prices? What sort of impact would those changes have on your business?
- Is there a risk of a vendor lock-in?
- Are you happy with the vendor relationship overall? Are they typically responsive, reliable, and committed to the partnership?
Finally, look to the future when considering your vendor relationships. If you want to continue to grow your MSP business, consider what steps you need to take with existing or new partnerships to help make that happen.
Starting the New Year With Success
With 2025 right around the corner, it’s imperative for MSPs to focus on their budget, operational efficiencies, and vendor relationships. By looking at these three areas, you can position your business to thrive going into the start of the new year.
