This article was sponsored by Multapplied Networks, a leading SD-WAN enabler.
At this point, most MSPs are well aware of the SD-WAN play.
It’s no secret that SD-WAN is a multi-billion dollar opportunity, and something that every MSP should be leveraging to deploy services, drive profits, acquire new customers and increase customer retention.
Unfortunately, most MSPs are still missing the point with SD-WAN—big time.
SD-WAN vendors are dangling mediocre incentives and rewards to MSPs who are offering their services, while they rake in profits.
Here are some of the top mistakes that MSPs are making with SD-WAN:
Mistake: Not charging enough
It’s not much fun having another company tell you how much you are allowed to charge for a service. For most MSPs, though, this is the reality with SD-WAN. The SD-WAN vendor sets the SD-WAN MSRP, and pays a commission to the MSP when a sale is made.
Solution: Don’t sell someone else’s out-of-box SD-WAN—white label your own! With Multapplied’s SD-WAN, you can charge whatever you want. Some of Multapplied’s partners mark up their SD-WAN service 50%. Some go as high as 500% or more.
Mistake: Bad branding
As an MSP, you want customers to stay focused on your brand—not your SD-WAN vendor’s brand. MSPs often fall into the trap, though, of promoting other companies’ SD-WAN solutions—and they get nothing in return for it.
Solution: Companies like Cisco and VMware have phenomenal brands, and don’t need you building them up. Sell your own SD-WAN service, and promote your own brand instead. Again, white labelling your SD-WAN through Multapplied will put you in control of your offering. It will be YOUR SD-WAN product, with YOUR branding that you license, manage and control end-to-end.
Mistake: Long, expensive contracts
These days, the word “flexible” SD-WAN gets tossed around left and right. Just about every SD-WAN vendor will tell you that their solution is flexible in some form or another. Why? Because they want you to sign a multi-year service agreement. And once you sign, you’re stuck working with them until the contract expires whether you like it or not.
Solution: Steer clear of any vendor offering a multi-year SD-WAN contract. Who knows what your customer base, and your business will look like a year or more down the road. Things move very quickly in networking, and you want to retain the ability to make snap decisions when you need to.
With Multapplied, you will never have to worry about signing a long term commitment. If you don’t like our offering, you can cancel at any time. No questions asked.
Mistake: Limiting speeds
At the end of the day, end users want fast, and reliable uploads and downloads. Many MSPs are still using load balancers, though, limiting speeds and frustrating customers.
Solution: It’s simple—avoid using load balancers. Multapplied’s solution, for instance, combines bandwidth from all available connections for a single transfer. This method, called “stacked bandwidth,” can be used bi-directionally for any single transfer.
Mistake: Surrendering control
Ultimately, the biggest mistake that MSPs are making with SD-WAN today is that they’re giving up their right to make these critical decisions—decisions that have a big impact on service quality, customer satisfaction and ROI.
Multapplied takes a different approach to SD-WAN, by putting the MSP in the driver’s seat. With Multapplied, you are in control over just about every aspect of the SD-WAN management and deployment process.
To learn more about Multapplied’s technology, download our white paper.
