Power and Cooling Managed Services Best Sold as Part of a Package

From a technical standpoint, adding APC by Schneider Electric power and cooling managed services to your offerings is a straightforward process. That’s because we’ve integrated with remote management and monitoring (RMM) and professional services automation (PSA) vendors to add plugins to their platforms for our service.

If you already use one of those platforms, all you have to do is enable the monitor sets so you can start delivering power and cooling services remotely. Of course, make sure your engineering staff reads the relevant documentation too so you can leverage the service’s capabilities to the fullest extent.

The main question you as the MSP will have to address is how to sell the service to customers. Do you market power and cooling as a standalone add-on service or make it part of a larger package of offerings?

If you already have a number of customers on managed services contracts your best option may be to discuss it during your quarterly or annual service review. Whenever adding new customers, the preferred approach is to sell the service as part of an overall infrastructure package. As a managed service provider, it benefits the customer for you to take over as many day-to-day IT functions as possible in the customer’s environment.  That way you can take a preventive maintenance approach that reduces operational costs, improves performance and minimizes downtime. There is nothing more fundamental to keeping the customer’s environment up and running than making sure the power and cooling infrastructure runs uninterrupted.

Applying a managed services approach to power and cooling is very compelling because it allows you to perform a lot of maintenance functions remotely. For instance, if a switch that controls a call center goes down, you can log into the PDU (power distribution unit), find the switch and reboot it.

This accelerates problem resolution from hours to minutes, potentially preventing downtime for the customer and a customer service headache for you. Another way to prevent downtime is through more effective lifecycle management of the power and cooling devices. Because you are monitoring the units remotely 24/7, you’ll know when they need maintenance or new batteries, so you can perform the necessary work on a schedule that helps prevent malfunction and extend the life of the devices.

Power and cooling is a perfect fit for the managed services model – and now we’ve made it easier than ever for you to deliver the service.

Find out more about adding power and cooling managed services by downloading our free guide, MSP Matters: A Roadmap to Enduring Business Success. 

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