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\nAlrighty. So our next speaker and I'll go ahead and start the recording. Here.<\/p>\n
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\nOur next speaker is Anne Hall, and so you may need to turn on your translator because she's from New Zealand.<\/p>\n
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\nGood friends, separated by a common language. But first let me thank our sponsor Asigra is the leader in ultra secure backup and recovery.<\/p>\n
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:25.000
\nLast month they were named to Crn Magazine's coolest data Protection Vendor list for 2023.<\/p>\n
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\nIncrease your profits and your clients security by engaging today at asigra.com.<\/p>\n
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\nSo and I don't even know how I got in touch with you, but I had you on my podcast A while back and i'm like, Oh, my God, we have to dig into this a little more.<\/p>\n
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\nSo you are an attorney, and you help Msps all over the globe.<\/p>\n
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\nBut primarily those that speak English I assume, figure out their contracts.<\/p>\n
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\nAnd so I really like the fact that you are focused so much on success and the universality of the problems of Msps, which is different from the legal side of things.<\/p>\n
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\nSo with that I will let you take it away, and we we have like chat going on over here, and we got over there.<\/p>\n
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\nSo there you go!<\/p>\n
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\nVery nice. Thank you so much, Cal. I'm delighted to be here today and hello to everyone who's who's attending this session.<\/p>\n
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\nSo I'm talking about Insp contracts today and profitability and specifically, Msp contracts don't have to kill your profitability and you know what we see is Msps, of course, providing amazing services services that you clients are so so dependent on and yet all<\/p>\n
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\ntoo often the the everyday challenges that are faced by any piece can adversely impact your profitability.<\/p>\n
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\nSo you're not making the revenue. You're not making the profitability that that you should make, or indeed that you'd like to make.<\/p>\n
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\nSo this is what I'm going to be talking about.<\/p>\n
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\nWe'll start off and explore some of those areas of risk which impact your profitability.<\/p>\n
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\nAnd look at how you can use contracts to manage, risk, and to navigate your change, and then what I'll do is I'll share my 3 key ways that you can use contracts more effectively to maximize your profitability.<\/p>\n
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\nSo let's get into this. I will share my screen and and we'll go from there.<\/p>\n
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\nOkay, so first of all, I would like to acknowledge the the brilliant work that managed service providers.<\/p>\n
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\nDo you know so often? Well, all of the time, in fact, when I talk to to partners, to Msps, it's so evident the passion that you're bringing to your work.<\/p>\n
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\nYou know the dedication. It's more than a job for most of you.<\/p>\n
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\nThose who are in management, and owning their own Msp.<\/p>\n
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\nNow have typically come up through years of hard work and learning, and that learning, as I see it, continues, you only have to go to any event and see.<\/p>\n
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\nYou know, everyone wanting to stay up to date, to keep their skills honed, and to know what's going on in the marketplace, which, of course, is no simple task, and always working hard to look after casters, and and to really solve the challenges that are going on which, you know don't stay<\/p>\n
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\nthe same. But what we also see, of course, is, you know, on top things looking okay, things looking good.<\/p>\n
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\nSome businesses going exceedingly well, but often not far underneath.<\/p>\n
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\nThis concern about business risk, and that's and that business risk, you know, is often actually focused on the risk of legal proceedings.<\/p>\n
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\nThe yellow items that you know things could go terribly wrong, and I could be sued.<\/p>\n
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\nYou know that kind of sense of business risk that goes along with, you know, with contracts, with running a business, and indeed, providing these highly critical services that you're all providing to your clients.<\/p>\n
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\nBut I don't mean to alarm you by putting a whole lot of other areas of business risk here.<\/p>\n
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\nBut there are indeed a whole lot of other areas that impact your profitability and these are more, you know what I would call the everyday challenges, the things that actually do happen even in the Us.<\/p>\n
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\nThe risk of legal proceedings, of course, sits there, but it's not.<\/p>\n
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\nIt's still very rare for for an it company to face legal proceedings.<\/p>\n
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\nSo let's just have a look and spend a little bit of time on this slide.<\/p>\n
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\nAnd explore some of these areas which are often impacting profitability.<\/p>\n
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\nFirstly, look at, you know, risks when reselling cloud services.<\/p>\n
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\nOf course, emiss's our reselling cloud services.<\/p>\n
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\nWhether that's part of a managed service, or separately.<\/p>\n
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\nAnd what goes on there, on what basis are you reselling those services?<\/p>\n
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\nWhat does your customer think? What do you think? What does your contract say? Immediately?<\/p>\n
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\nRight there there are areas of uncertainty as to who's responsible for what?<\/p>\n
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\nWhich time and again it's easy to see examples of that costing the Msp.<\/p>\n
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\nSome money, the next one, in a more particular version of the reselling of cloud services is the Microsoft Microsoft Cloud services, and of course, around about August 2021 Microsoft came out with the Nca.<\/p>\n
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\nChanges which healeded a new type of payment risk for for Msps.<\/p>\n
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\nCausing quite a lot of alarm around the community, and and rightly so.<\/p>\n
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\nBut alongside those payment risks where you know new things were and are new areas around.<\/p>\n
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\nYou know, cancellation of orders, cancellation following.<\/p>\n
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\nRenewal, being able to only increase seat counts and not decrease.<\/p>\n
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\nDuring the term, of course, bringing a whole lot more risk, a whole lot more learning required a whole lot more education of coverage around these sorts of areas to try and contain those risks, and then, you know, and these are all biggies.<\/p>\n
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\nEach of them could could potentially have a whole session in itself.<\/p>\n
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\nBut if we look at cyber attacks, what's going on with cyber attacks, they're always the, in fact, pretty scary, pretty scary for me.<\/p>\n
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\nSp, pretty scary for your customers, and you know the job seems to be on the Msp.<\/p>\n
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\nTo, to raise, continually raise that awareness amongst your customers who may or may not be doing what they should be in terms of cyber attacks.<\/p>\n
00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:17.000
\nBut if anything, does happen, of course, who are they? Firstly, going to look at?<\/p>\n
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\nMost likely their Msp.<\/p>\n
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\nSo a couple of other areas that I'd like to just look at here as well unplaid work, you know.<\/p>\n
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\nI know that most of you love what you're doing, but nobody wants to work for free.<\/p>\n
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\nSo it's an it's an it's an approach of looking and seeing, you know, what sort of work is being done.<\/p>\n
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\nProductive work that is valuable to your clients.<\/p>\n
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\nThat's not necessarily being charged, and I don't mean, you know, Nickel and diming your customers, but rightly charging what you should be charging rather than saying, oh, you know that took a lot longer.<\/p>\n
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\nWe won't explain that to the customer. It will go effectively as unpaid work, of course, impacting your revenue, and indeed your bottom line.<\/p>\n
00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:05.000
\nThere is some good news amongst all of us, and you know the good news.<\/p>\n
00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:22.000
\nIf you look at messed up, sell opportunities. Of course, if you are missing up, sell opportunities, then you can turn that around and actually create new upsell opportunityities, and part of the reason why these upsell opportunities are missed is when the Msp appears to take full responsibility<\/p>\n
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\nfor everything. Then the customer will not see that they need anything more from you.<\/p>\n
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\nSo if you go and offer an additional service, they may think that you're already providing that service.<\/p>\n
00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:50.000
\nSo by putting clearer boundaries around the different types of services that you're offering, you're more likely to to be able to take advantage of additional upsell opportunities, and I'll talk a little bit more about that one shortly.<\/p>\n
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\nThen there's the age, old out of scope, and you know, showing my age here a little bit.<\/p>\n
00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:15.000
\nBut I've been an it lawyer since the early nineties, and in those early days on large implementation projects and large software development projects the out of scope was a big topic, always trying to contain always trying to manage, you know, changes and what's a defect and how we manage change.<\/p>\n
00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:35.000
\nBut when we come to manage services, of course there are still projects, and it's a matter of managing the out of scope work via, but also and really significantly for managed service providers containing what's in scope and what's out of scope for your managed service and we see that a<\/p>\n
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\nlot of the time which I'll I'll also talk more about later on.<\/p>\n
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\nThis presentation now I've got at the top. There the revenue leakage and a lot of these areas are indeed, you know, forms of revenue leakage.<\/p>\n
00:09:47.000 --> 00:10:02.000
\nOf course, the Revenue Leakage means you're not making the profitability that you might otherwise make, so I will also talk about this one little further in the presentation.<\/p>\n
00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:14.000
\nThe impact on business growth, if you're not making the money, you know, you need additional funds to put into your business, to grow to hire that extra person, to move your business forward.<\/p>\n
00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:21.000
\nAnd so if all of these types of risks that are impacting your revenue and not managed well, then, that can certainly impact your business growth.<\/p>\n
00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:31.000
\nAnd the other thing is you know, a lot of Msps are of an age where they may be thinking about in whatever age there is.<\/p>\n
00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:32.000
\nYou know what's going to happen further down the track?<\/p>\n
00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:47.000
\nWhat is? What is my exit? Strategy here and then potentially, you know what is the value of the next most obvious thing is, you know, how would what would my business be worth?<\/p>\n
00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:55.000
\nAnd of all of these areas are better managed in. Of course, your exit value is going to be a lot higher.<\/p>\n
00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:56.000
\nSo that's, you know, a catch. All of different types of business risks.<\/p>\n
00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:09.000
\nMany of which can impact your profitability. Let's look at this guy here with the X, and I'm hoping that you know you're not.<\/p>\n
00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:13.000
\nYou're not deliberately taking an X to your profitability.<\/p>\n
00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:28.000
\nBut if you're doing any of these sorts of things, and not managing your your business risks, well, then, indeed, you could be seen to be taking an X to your profitability.<\/p>\n
00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:34.000
\nSo things like using contracts that don't clearly describe your service commitment using contracts that your customers don't.<\/p>\n
00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:44.000
\nUnderstand, it's important that you understand your contracts, but also really important that your customers understand your contracts.<\/p>\n
00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:52.000
\nFiling contracts away and not really using what's in them, and I'll come to that again later in the presentation, using the wrong types of contracts or not using contracts appropriately.<\/p>\n
00:11:52.000 --> 00:12:04.000
\nSo all of these sorts of areas feed into, you know, an impact on your profitability.<\/p>\n
00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:08.000
\nSo this lot of areas that are really, actually quite easy for improvement.<\/p>\n
00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:17.000
\nThat's the good news. And indeed, these sorts of risk areas can be managed.<\/p>\n
00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:25.000
\nSo here we have a climber, a rock climber that's not an activity that I would particularly like to do.<\/p>\n
00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:33.000
\nBut I believe that some people find this fun, and as you can see, this climber here has chosen a wall at does look quite difficult to me.<\/p>\n
00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:42.000
\nBut there are, indeed, quite a lot of crevices and and and knocks that he can get his feet into.<\/p>\n
00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.000
\nUnlike, you know, I don't know if any of you have seen the movie free Solo.<\/p>\n
00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:52.000
\nBut then that movie, Alex Honnold climbs El Capitan, which is a 3,000 foot.<\/p>\n
00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:59.000
\nSheer rock face, and he climbs that with no ropes to me that would be just incredibly too much risk.<\/p>\n
00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:09.000
\nBut in both the case of Alex. Honnold, who trained andcessantly for years and years and years, and studied and learned that Wall that he was going to change.<\/p>\n
00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:10.000
\nI don't know if you call it a wall, but a rock face.<\/p>\n
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:12.000
\nHe managed his risk by being incredibly well prepared.<\/p>\n
00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:22.000
\nThis guy here on our picture is managing his risk using rope.<\/p>\n
00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:26.000
\nNow? Guess what? Perhaps no surprise with that lead into the slide.<\/p>\n
00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.000
\nBut you can manage your risk by using the right sort of contracts, and those are really a strong and effective tool. If used.<\/p>\n
00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:53.000
\nWell, by which you can manage your risk. Now, if we look at some of the common risk areas, I know of've already labeled quite a few common risk areas already, but there are a few additional ones that I would like to identify here on this slide in terms of how you manage things and a common<\/p>\n
00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.000
\none is, you know, customers not taking up your recommendations.<\/p>\n
00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:57.000
\nYou may find that, you know you put out different options.<\/p>\n
00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:11.000
\nYour customer decides to go with the cheaper option not necessarily the one that you recommend, but it is an option just, not a really great option, or they don't take up your recommendation. They decide.<\/p>\n
00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:23.000
\nYeah, we're going to defer that project. We're not going to do that right now, even though you are, you know, really urging them that this is something that's important sometimes with the best of intentions.<\/p>\n
00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:27.000
\nThey may say, Yes, yes, yes, we agree, and then not do anything.<\/p>\n
00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:33.000
\nSo that then potentially puts a risk onto the managed service provider.<\/p>\n
00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:39.000
\nThe next one I've identified. Via is customer assumptions, and this is a Biggie, you know.<\/p>\n
00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:42.000
\nYou've probably come across this many times before that the partner is looking, that you, the partner the Msp. Are looking after.<\/p>\n
00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:48.000
\nEverything. It's a very common assumption that you know the customer will say great I've signed up an it company.<\/p>\n
00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:55.000
\nThey're now responsible for everything. They'll let me know if anything needs to be done.<\/p>\n
00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:03.000
\nThey are looking after all my data backups they're looking after all my security.<\/p>\n
00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:13.000
\nEverything is beautiful, so and that's regardless of what type of services you are actually providing in the extent of those services casters will have assumptions.<\/p>\n
00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:29.000
\nThey'll have expectations again. That's a risk that you need to manage the out of scope work I've already talked to a little bit, but again to identify and just reiterate that these are areas of revenue leakage.<\/p>\n
00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:37.000
\nThe same with the Microsoft. Nca. Changes.<\/p>\n
00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:48.000
\nSo if you look at those words I've added at the bottom, and the green boxes all with exclamation marks is because the good news here is that you can manage these sorts of risks.<\/p>\n
00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:53.000
\nYou can manage them using the right agreement. You can offer services with greater confidence.<\/p>\n
00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:59.000
\nWe often hear partners, you know, concerned about their responsibility.<\/p>\n
00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:04.000
\nWhen reselling cloud services. So using contracts effectively.<\/p>\n
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:12.000
\nThere is, in fact, a way to manage through those risks so long as you're using them properly.<\/p>\n
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:19.000
\nAlongside managing risk. You know, we need to look at change and change is inevitable, and fact.<\/p>\n
00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:40.000
\nI think the pace of changes increasing. So you know the sorts of issues that we're talking to Mspps about now, probably even different than 6 months ago, or there is, you know, there's a greater focus on different types of areas one in particular, if you look at the bottom right there change to your services and you<\/p>\n
00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:47.000
\nknow increasingly Msps getting involved in more, more and more cybersecurity offerings.<\/p>\n
00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:56.000
\nSo you know, if you have come from, you know, providing managed services, and then you start providing manage security services.<\/p>\n
00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:01.000
\nThat is a is a change in your service offering, which you should then be thinking.<\/p>\n
00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:13.000
\nI need to have contracts that go along with this to manage this risk, to navigate through this change that I'm implementing in my business to let my customers know and to communicate and agree.<\/p>\n
00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:16.000
\nYou know, the basis on which I'm providing this new service.<\/p>\n
00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:37.000
\nLikewise, if any of you are providing breakfast services and moving into managed services which is still, you know, that is still a transition which definitely requires a change in the type of agreements that that you are using some partners, that we talk to are using terms, and conditions that there've used from 5<\/p>\n
00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:41.000
\nyears ago, or 10 years ago, and certainly in that time what they're providing has changed significantly.<\/p>\n
00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:52.000
\nAnd so therefore their contracts should be changing, because effectively you know, your content is really what you are agreeing with.<\/p>\n
00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:58.000
\nYour customer. So if your services change, then think I need to change my agreements.<\/p>\n
00:17:58.000 --> 00:17:59.000
\nAnother area of change. And I've put 3 areas of change on here.<\/p>\n
00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:06.000
\nSo we've got changes to your services. We've got changes that take place in your customers.<\/p>\n
00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:14.000
\nWhether that's because particular customers grow or you're attracting new or larger types of customers.<\/p>\n
00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:15.000
\nThose sorts of things often mean that you need to refresh.<\/p>\n
00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:26.000
\nRe, look at your agreements. We quite often at the stage get partners coming along and saying we are attracting bigger customers.<\/p>\n
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:34.000
\nThey are requiring us to have proper contracts. So those sorts of things need to be taken into account, and market changes.<\/p>\n
00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:55.000
\nI haven't listed here under market changes. The impact of insurance requirements, but that is certainly a very common topic for us now, as partners coming in and saying, I went to get my insurance renewed, or I went to get news insurance and my insurance insurer is requiring us to<\/p>\n
00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:02.000
\nhave new contracts or contracts that cover our services.<\/p>\n
00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:08.000
\nLikewise, and I've mentioned to Microsoft in Ca, when things like that go on with vindors, you know.<\/p>\n
00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:20.000
\nThat is then going to flow through and impact, or should impact and change what you're agreeing with your customer.<\/p>\n
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:26.000
\nNow this guy here, with his head in his hands. It's this is the guy that I would call, you know.<\/p>\n
00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:30.000
\nHe's got the viewpoint of contracts. The what if we assume thinking?<\/p>\n
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:40.000
\nBecause now, when I started going to the Us. Particularly a number of years ago with it degree having just founded it, Degree went over to the Us.<\/p>\n
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:48.000
\nAnd I started attending a lot of events and some of the feedback that I got back around contracts was, you know.<\/p>\n
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:55.000
\nWell, nothing's ever happened. Yes, we've got some terms and conditions, but nothing's ever happened.<\/p>\n
00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:56.000
\nAnd this kind of viewpoint of, you know. Hopefully, our contract will save us.<\/p>\n
00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:09.000
\nSave us. If anything does ever happen our clients trust us, you know we've got a handshake agreement.<\/p>\n
00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:10.000
\nThese sorts of things, or our customers don't even read the contract.<\/p>\n
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:16.000
\nI'm not really sure what it's for, but hopefully it'll save us if anything does happen.<\/p>\n
00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:20.000
\nAnd the other one of you know, commonly it's it's all legal.<\/p>\n
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:33.000
\nNow there is another viewpoint around contracts and I hope you're starting to see from some of the sorts of areas of business risk.<\/p>\n
00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:42.000
\nWe're I'm hitting, and that is that you know your contract is not just for that worst case scenario.<\/p>\n
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.000
\nThe worst case scenario be being that day, and hopefully, this never happens to you.<\/p>\n
00:20:45.000 --> 00:21:01.000
\nThat day that legal proceedings arrives, because if you're looking at your contracts like that, that's really a reactive view of what your contractors for, you know, that worst case scenario, let's hope our contract says that saves us.<\/p>\n
00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:10.000
\nBut if we're dealing with costs in a way that manages the sorts of risks that I call the everyday risks that I've that I've identified a lot of for you already.<\/p>\n
00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:15.000
\nThen you're taking a view of your contract that it's providing you a strong degree of proxy protection.<\/p>\n
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:41.000
\nYou're using it to manage your risks. And indeed, if you use your contract with that way, then you will find that this even less risk of that worst case scenario, if ever happening, even if that the means you know not legal not legal proceedings as such but a major dispute with a customer.<\/p>\n
00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:46.000
\nso think about what you're using contracts for, and what is your approach?<\/p>\n
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:47.000
\nIf it's the what if we're sued thinking?<\/p>\n
00:21:47.000 --> 00:22:03.000
\nThen I would encourage you to think about the other ways that you can use your contract and change that thinking, to using this as a tool to manage all of these sort of risks.<\/p>\n
00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:06.000
\nAnd here, indeed, we've got this proactive and reactive.<\/p>\n
00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:18.000
\nSo the guy on the left, using a whole lot of safety gear, climbing, keeping safe he's been proactive about managing his risk and going up this skip, holding on the right.<\/p>\n
00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:22.000
\nHe's had a terrible fall. I don't know what he had done prior to this fall, but obviously did not take enough.<\/p>\n
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:26.000
\nKia, in managing his risk. So now he has to be looked after.<\/p>\n
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:31.000
\nPepsi's got to have time off work. He may have an injury.<\/p>\n
00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:37.000
\nSo this is the reactive. Yes, if I fall someone will look after me.<\/p>\n
00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:50.000
\nBut let's try and move on to the proxy side, because now, in any contract I talk about, you know this effectively. 2 parts.<\/p>\n
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:57.000
\nThis is the part that is really the nuts and bolts of what you're agreing, and if you think about it a contract is an agreement.<\/p>\n
00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:05.000
\nWhat are you agreeing with your customer? It is a legally enforceable agreement, but an agreement nonetheless.<\/p>\n
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:17.000
\nAnd so if think about it in terms of you know, what are you agreeing with this customer, and are you sitting that out nice and clearly to manage all those sorts of risks that I talked about.<\/p>\n
00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:21.000
\nOr are you really focusing on what I call the lawyers part of the contract?<\/p>\n
00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:22.000
\nAnd that would be the part to do with limitation, of liability.<\/p>\n
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:41.000
\nAnd warranties and indemnities, all the parts that perhaps only lawyers understand fully if you're relying on all of those, of course they they should be strong enough to what's stand and to look after you suddenly to some degree, at least, if you did ever face legal<\/p>\n
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:50.000
\nproceedings. But let's not rely on that. It's being the sole purpose of the contract.<\/p>\n
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:53.000
\nSo what is your approach? And I'm not on this slide.<\/p>\n
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:54.000
\nIn particular, not looking at, you know what is your approach in terms of proactive and reactive.<\/p>\n
00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:04.000
\nJust what is your approach to contracts the most common that we see is David.<\/p>\n
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:10.000
\nIn the middle there, who uses agreements, but they are out of date or not suitable.<\/p>\n
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:13.000
\nHe's got us hidden his hands. He's no that.<\/p>\n
00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:19.000
\nHe needs to do something about this, but he hasn't yet got around to it.<\/p>\n
00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:23.000
\nThis is a really common scenario that we see. It's concerned about business risk doesn't really quite know what to do.<\/p>\n
00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:24.000
\nI'm concerned about managing change has got agreements.<\/p>\n
00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:37.000
\nWho is on the board with that really not suitable. Then we see Robert, the handshake Guy.<\/p>\n
00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:55.000
\nHe's he's our customers. Trust us now, if you're like Robert, I would urge you strongly to do something about that and start moving along that track and starting to use contracts, because if you're relying on trust alone, it's that's really not a great place to<\/p>\n
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:56.000
\nbe, and then we have Sera on the right now in terms of anysps using attorneys.<\/p>\n
00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:11.000
\nYes, of course many of you do. But typically it's going to be for your, for your property, lease your employment agreement, your company structure, and so on.<\/p>\n
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:21.000
\nAnd so if you're going to that same attorney and wanting contracts for managers or cybersecurity services, or managing risks around in.<\/p>\n
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:27.000
\nCa, then Sarah is probably going to be having to explain a lot to her local attorney, because that attorney is not doing that work all of the time.<\/p>\n
00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:45.000
\nIn fact, the probably do a very little apart. A very small part of their practice would be that type of work, and so, you know, lawyers, of course, provide a great service, but you get different lawyers for different types of situations.<\/p>\n
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.000
\nAnd there's still a not very many. It attorneys around.<\/p>\n
00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:56.000
\nSo if you are using an attorney, you know, make sure that they are an attorney, that that is actually got a strong understanding of the It industry.<\/p>\n
00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:15.000
\nWhat we do find is that people will spend a lot of time and money with an attorney without necessarily getting what they want, and they probably don't go to them as much as what they want to or need to, because of the cost.<\/p>\n
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:20.000
\nSorry. I'm just looking at this. Ask you to identify where you're sitting.<\/p>\n
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:21.000
\nAre you a Robert? Are you a David? Are you a Sarah?<\/p>\n
00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:35.000
\nAnd whether or not that's working for you. Certainly with Robert and David something needs to be done with Sarah. Sometimes something needs to be done.<\/p>\n
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:54.000
\nSo we'll move now onto, I said. I'll tell you about the 3 key areas that I see is really really important for using agreements appropriately and well, to get on top of your risk, and so that your profitability can be can be maximized the first is let's call it<\/p>\n
00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:58.000
\nthe barrier of expertise. And let me explain what this is about.<\/p>\n
00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:01.000
\nSo you know, as an Msp. You have got remarkable levels of skills, knowledge, and experience.<\/p>\n
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:12.000
\nYou and your team have been doing this for years. You are right up to speed with what's going on.<\/p>\n
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:23.000
\nAnd you know, looking after your customers so well your customers on the other side, on the other hand, have got a very low level of understanding of what it is you're actually doing for them.<\/p>\n
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:36.000
\nSo there is a this barrier of expertise. Now your customers come along to you, and they can see all of this skill, knowledge, and experience that you and your team have, and that's why they hire you.<\/p>\n
00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:42.000
\nOf course they trust you, and they're going to rely on you a lot.<\/p>\n
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:47.000
\nBut that trust alone, while it's it's important in fact, it's essential that they trust you.<\/p>\n
00:27:47.000 --> 00:28:02.000
\nIt's really can be the cause of many problems. So what we need is a way of overcoming this barrier of expertise.<\/p>\n
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:10.000
\nNow Julia, a partner that we worked with, she said to me, and we don't really have a problem with contracts.<\/p>\n
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:18.000
\nOur customers just sign and we get started. The problems only start after the contractors signed.<\/p>\n
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:22.000
\nNow, hopefully, from what I've been talking about so far, you can.<\/p>\n
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:34.000
\nYou can begin to see how this is playing out. So the contract here being signed, the problem starting afterwards, her team managing support requests that are out of scope.<\/p>\n
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:48.000
\nYou know those grey areas where the customer wasn't really sure what was agreed are going to work against Julia and her team because they really want to look after the customer, as I'm sure all of you are and all of you want to but that.<\/p>\n
00:28:48.000 --> 00:29:09.000
\nImpacts. Then your profitability. So if you dore doing out of scope work the the nice monthly fee that you were getting for your managed service is going to be checked away at all the time with that out of scope work alongside that you've got this concerns about cyber attacks<\/p>\n
00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:16.000
\nthe missed up sell opportunities, and this case with Julia, you know she had shortly after, shortly before.<\/p>\n
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:38.000
\nSorry I met her. Had a client dispute a $30,000 a bill so all of those sorts of things starting to come in on top of her, and you know what Julia needed to see was that having customers just sign and then problems starting afterwards meant that there really wasn't<\/p>\n
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:59.000
\na strong agreement. In the first place. So once Julia took that on board, started using the right contracts and started actually just investing a little bit of time and helping customers to understand what was going on, making sure those gray areas were really ironed out, in their contracts then those sorts of revenue<\/p>\n
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:06.000
\nleakage areas started to reduce significantly.<\/p>\n
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:12.000
\nNow looking at the money side of things, as you know, some of you may well want to with the matrix.<\/p>\n
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:22.000
\nThis was a discussion I had with a partner, and I have to say it's not an uncommon discussion, so I bring up the topic of revenue leakage.<\/p>\n
00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:29.000
\nThe first response in this particular case. On the example I have in mind, we don't have a problem with revenue leakage.<\/p>\n
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:36.000
\nIt's a little bit of a defensive response is that everything is going fine as I said to you at the beginning.<\/p>\n
00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:43.000
\nOn the surface things look fine, but underneath are these problems in they're usually not that far underneath.<\/p>\n
00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:56.000
\nSo 5\u00a0min later, in this particular conversation, the partner said to me, actually, now that I think about it, we do have those sorts of problems, and I would put the number at about $11,000 a month.<\/p>\n
00:30:56.000 --> 00:30:58.000
\nSo quite a big number, but that number was revised upwards.<\/p>\n
00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:08.000
\nDuring our conversation, as we carried on talking and they said it would be close to $200,000 each year.<\/p>\n
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:22.000
\nSo that's a lot of money and what I want to draw to your attention is that you know, for most partners, when we have this discussion, they actually put the number at a least 5% of revenue.<\/p>\n
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:24.000
\nSo that's revenue leakage money that you're not making, and that you could.<\/p>\n
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:36.000
\nSo basically leaving it on the table a source last week in a video, one of the one of the big distributors said, that is an industry average.<\/p>\n
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:44.000
\nIf it is 6% of growth of gross revenue.<\/p>\n
00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:48.000
\nSo that's earnings before interest, tax depreciation, amortization.<\/p>\n
00:31:48.000 --> 00:32:07.000
\n6% of gross revenue. Not a particularly high figure, but, as you can see, with that 5% of revenue being revenue leakage, you know, there is the opportunity there to double your if you're working at that industry average, or certainly if if you're above that to have a nice<\/p>\n
00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:18.000
\nhealthy increase by focusing on some of these sorts of areas that are simply revenue leakage areas.<\/p>\n
00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:28.000
\nSo what I've just been talking about there is really, you know, the first of those 3 areas that I see that I would be covering.<\/p>\n
00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:29.000
\nAnd it's around what I call expectation, alignment.<\/p>\n
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:33.000
\nSo with Julia, you know, getting that real agreement getting customers on board and understanding what it is.<\/p>\n
00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:44.000
\nYou're doing for them in a way that's meaningful to them.<\/p>\n
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:50.000
\nOkay. It's all very well for you to have contracts filled with technical jargon.<\/p>\n
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:56.000
\nThat means something to you, but it needs to mean something to your customers, and you know that's you know.<\/p>\n
00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:01.000
\nAside, people say, Oh, the contracts got legalese. Yes, you know.<\/p>\n
00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:11.000
\nSome contracts do have legales, I would encourage you to not use those sorts of contracts, because if you don't understand them, then likely your customers don't understand them either.<\/p>\n
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:15.000
\nBut likewise don't fill your contracts with technical jargon.<\/p>\n
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:20.000
\nSo you know what does your customer think? Have you asked them from our contract?<\/p>\n
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:29.000
\nCan you tell what our service will be? You know you could ask yourself you could ask someone who's who's not an enemy's someone outside of your team?<\/p>\n
00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:33.000
\nDoes this make sense to you? Because that's quite a strong test.<\/p>\n
00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:39.000
\nInitially as to whether you're able to use your contract to get that alignment of expectation.<\/p>\n
00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:46.000
\nGet customers actually understanding. And then, of course, the way you talk with them needs to be consistent with that.<\/p>\n
00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:50.000
\nBut we're moving now onto the second of the 3 areas.<\/p>\n
00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:00.000
\nAnd that is to recognize that Msps provide a range of services not just one service being managed services, but a range of services.<\/p>\n
00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:01.000
\nAnd if you look at this list here you'll you can identify, you know.<\/p>\n
00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:05.000
\nYes, most of you will be providing many of these services may be more managed.<\/p>\n
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:21.000
\nServices, cybersecurity, services of different types. Whether that's simply reselling a cybersecurity service from a third party, or providing it yourself.<\/p>\n
00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:31.000
\nReselling Microsoft Cloud services, usually 3, 6, 5, some of your reselling azure as well, and you know on what basis do your customers think you're doing that?<\/p>\n
00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:43.000
\nDon't get caught like Julia, we're the customer thought, you know, that they were monitoring the consumption whereas you know, that wasn't part of what was being what was being done for that particular customer.<\/p>\n
00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:49.000
\nHence the $30,000 azure dispute maybe reselling other third-party services.<\/p>\n
00:34:49.000 --> 00:35:11.000
\nWhether it's part of your managed service or part of your cybersecurity offering, or just as standalone reselling offerings, doing project works, projects providing Bcdr services or straight backup privilege hosting and the list goes on so, if you think about all of these<\/p>\n
00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:19.000
\ndifferent types of services. They are indeed different, and they have different zoom service commitments from you.<\/p>\n
00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:27.000
\nThey have different responsibilities from you. They should, and they should have different obligations, not only from you, but from your customer.<\/p>\n
00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:37.000
\nSo in a project. For example, if they're part of their task, is to to clean up data before a migration, or you know, whatever it is, that's relevant for that particular project that's going to be different than their task.<\/p>\n
00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:58.000
\nIf you're reselling them. 3, 6, 5. So all of these is to recognize that using the same type of agreement for all of these different types of services is immediately going to raise your level of business risk.<\/p>\n
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:04.000
\nAnd indeed, as I said before, about customers hate making assumptions and having expectations.<\/p>\n
00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:17.000
\nIf you are using one contract for all of these sorts of areas that only really encourages your customers to see, or to think that you are looking after everything you know.<\/p>\n
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:38.000
\nCast your agreements. Are they specific to the services being provided, and also are they up to date with the service that you provide so if you start providing a managed service, and then you start providing a cyber security, you know, a managed managed security service it's not gonna be appropriate to use that<\/p>\n
00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:42.000
\nsame managed services. Agreement for your for your managed security services, offering.<\/p>\n
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:46.000
\nYou need to keep them up to date. When I say up to date.<\/p>\n
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:52.000
\nIt's not only you know the law that's actually a small part of keeping agreements up to date.<\/p>\n
00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:54.000
\nThe law tends to change quite slowly, compared to what's going on in the market.<\/p>\n
00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:07.000
\nCompared to what is happening with your services and compared to what's going on with your customers.<\/p>\n
00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:11.000
\nWe're going to look just quickly here. And this is a relatively new slide.<\/p>\n
00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:21.000
\nI want to use this slide twice, which is around what what happens when there are cyber attacks, and probably not many of you.<\/p>\n
00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:31.000
\nIf any have looked at what the vendors say in their contracts, but I certainly haven't without naming any vendors.<\/p>\n
00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:40.000
\nThese are visa and the green on the right, provisions that have pulled out from the first-case firewall, vendor, and the second, and Rmm.<\/p>\n
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:56.000
\nVendor, and you can see that in the first case there is no warranty ripsation, or indemnity that the products will detect, identify, or disable all or any specific harmful programs viruses or harmful components.<\/p>\n
00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:03.000
\nSo you know that vendor is not taking very much responsibility for the firewall, and bear in mind, nor should you, and that's a really important and key point here who carries the risk.<\/p>\n
00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:14.000
\nIf the vendor is not carrying the risk, why should you carry the risk?<\/p>\n
00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:23.000
\nWhy would you offer a greater level of protection and take on that business risk when the vendor themselves is not likewise with the Rmm. Vendor?<\/p>\n
00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:27.000
\nThere is in this particular one. I looked at a limited 30 day warranty.<\/p>\n
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:39.000
\nIt was very limited, but all representations and warranties excluded to the extent permitted by law, notably for security, loss of corruption or data.<\/p>\n
00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:46.000
\nSo no, no representational warranty at all around security, loss, or corruption of data, continuity or absence of defect.<\/p>\n
00:38:46.000 --> 00:39:02.000
\nSo something that's, you know, as I put their reality, check something to strongly bear in mind in terms of how you are dealing with these areas and your contracts.<\/p>\n
00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:14.000
\nUsing an agreement when reselling cloud services. So, Jonathan, here, you know, and and I guess a lot of Msps that we see are including these services, that they're reselling on an invoice.<\/p>\n
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:15.000
\nSo it's just simply a line on an invoice.<\/p>\n
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:20.000
\nIs to the the service that you're reselling.<\/p>\n
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:25.000
\nNow that can, of course, get you into trouble, and we see that quite commonly.<\/p>\n
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:30.000
\nJonathan, here is an Esp. Business. He let's say this month.<\/p>\n
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:36.000
\nLet's say that this is your business, and this month you go out and you sell some input protection.<\/p>\n
00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:43.000
\nThe next thing that happens, you know the customers ticking away, paying their monthly service fee to you for that service.<\/p>\n
00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:46.000
\nIn October they suffer a cyber incident.<\/p>\n
00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:50.000
\nNow, what are you typically going to do? You're going to rush in and help them.<\/p>\n
00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:51.000
\nFirst response and hopefully get them sorted out as Jonathan Wood.<\/p>\n
00:39:51.000 --> 00:40:05.000
\nHe? But the next month, you know, when the customer receives the bill for that time, they're not happy because they think hang on a second.<\/p>\n
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.000
\nWe're paying Jonathan for this security service.<\/p>\n
00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:12.000
\nJonathan should be totally looking after our security. Why did we even have a problem?<\/p>\n
00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:18.000
\nIn the first place, we're certainly not going to pay that invoice.<\/p>\n
00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:27.000
\nSo Jonathan has a difficult discussion around the invoice, but he's also feeling uncomfortable about not only his relationship with the client.<\/p>\n
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:30.000
\nWhat they thought he was responsible for, and what he thought.<\/p>\n
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:37.000
\nBut is there potentially going to be any litigation out of this sort of behavior?<\/p>\n
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:49.000
\nSo that's a difficult area and can be managed much more effectively than putting that line item in your invoice.<\/p>\n
00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:59.000
\nJust a couple of slides here an identifier that the Channel layer on the left when you're reselling third-party cloud services.<\/p>\n
00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:03.000
\nAnd this red circle here is where you need your contract.<\/p>\n
00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:12.000
\nIf you can see all of these other relationship lines from the vendor to the distributor, there's a strong contract in place.<\/p>\n
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:23.000
\nYou can be sure, protecting the Windor typically from the distributor to you again, the distributors, typically large organizations, big legal teams.<\/p>\n
00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:27.000
\nStrong contract, often in favor of the distributor from you to your customer.<\/p>\n
00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:48.000
\nThis is an area that is for you to look after and manage, and I would urge you to not simply put your your third party cloud services as a line item on your invoice, but to have the speaker here that protects you of course, around here, and if this is Microsoft you know some<\/p>\n
00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:55.000
\nPartners, say, well, there's the Microsoft customer agreement, but of course there does, as you can see here.<\/p>\n
00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:56.000
\nThis is Microsoft, that is, between Microsoft and the customer.<\/p>\n
00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:08.000
\nThat doesn't provide you protection. So even there, you still need to put in place that contract.<\/p>\n
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:28.000
\nAnd doing that you can certainly define and clarify your role, bearing in mind what I said on the previous slide around what the vendors do, which is that they don't take advantage of responsibility for the service that they're providing contractually.<\/p>\n
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:42.000
\nNow this slide looks very much like the immediate prior one, but it's different in that it recognizes that you are not only reselling third-party cloud services, but you're using them to provide your service.<\/p>\n
00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:43.000
\nSo if you think about your Rm. In the common ploy, of hackers to come in through the Rmm.<\/p>\n
00:42:43.000 --> 00:43:06.000
\nTo access your customers environments. This is also an area where you strongly need to protect yourself because it's not your Rm. Service. It's coming from vendor, and they are providing that to you here.<\/p>\n
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:12.000
\nBut you're then using that to provide service to your customer.<\/p>\n
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:15.000
\nSo that needs to be recognized and given that vendor is not taking full responsibility themselves.<\/p>\n
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:20.000
\nI would urge you to think about how you're dealing with that in your contracts.<\/p>\n
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:43.000
\nThere who should be responsible for performance of that service, for the security of that server. And this is why you need protection when you're using third-party services to provide to provide services yourselves.<\/p>\n
00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:44.000
\nAnd finally we'll come onto the very important topic of how your decisions are made.<\/p>\n
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:54.000
\nSo we've looked at, expectation, alignment. We've looked at the different types of services and the importance of putting a boundary around each of the different types of services.<\/p>\n
00:43:54.000 --> 00:44:05.000
\nNow you might think, if we have a those 2 things sorted out we've got our contracts strong and right for our service.<\/p>\n
00:44:05.000 --> 00:44:11.000
\nWhat could go wrong? Well, of course these things are not to be filed away and forgotten.<\/p>\n
00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:18.000
\nHow your decisions being made. And this is the third and really important area to have in mind.<\/p>\n
00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:33.000
\nSo this diagram on the right is reflecting the relationship between your agreements and your processes, and I'm not suggesting for a minute that you have your service teams pulling out the contract every time they go to do something.<\/p>\n
00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:42.000
\nBut what I am suggesting is that your agreements reflect your processes and your processes, and turn a reflection in your agreements.<\/p>\n
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:50.000
\nSo that the way that your servers teams is working is therefore consistent with what you've actually agreed with the customer.<\/p>\n
00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.000
\nIf you spend a lot of time working out your contracts, getting that all right, and then go and manage.<\/p>\n
00:44:54.000 --> 00:45:05.000
\nYou know, out of scope work at no request. Then you're really undoing a lot of the good and a lot of the work that's gone into those contracts, and I have seen this many times before.<\/p>\n
00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:17.000
\nSo it's really about changing the way that you operate.<\/p>\n
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:18.000
\nIf you're used to, you know, handling things out of scope.<\/p>\n
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:25.000
\nThe contract itself doesn't change the behavior of the people.<\/p>\n
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:33.000
\nYou need to change the behavior of your people, to be in line with what you're actually agreeing with your customers, and it can be a little bit of a slipery slope.<\/p>\n
00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:38.000
\nIf you start, for example, you know a small project yes, there'll be managed as part of your managed service.<\/p>\n
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:41.000
\nThen the customer they don't know what's the small project?<\/p>\n
00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:49.000
\nWhat's a big project necessarily? Or where does what makes it a project that's going to be included compared to a project that's not going to be included.<\/p>\n
00:45:49.000 --> 00:46:00.000
\nSo it's better to keep really, really clear delineation on what's included in your managed service and what's not, and that's not.<\/p>\n
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:03.000
\nAnd likewise with the other types of services that you provide.<\/p>\n
00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:15.000
\nSo when it comes to the revenue, leakage aspect, you know, you're really going to to be able to reduce that by adopting these sorts of approaches.<\/p>\n
00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:21.000
\nAre you turning a blind eye? You know your team. This is an example of a support request coming in.<\/p>\n
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:28.000
\nYour team carries out that work without notifying the customer that it's out of scope, and you absorb that cost hopefully.<\/p>\n
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:36.000
\nThat doesn't sound too familiar, but I fear that it probably is, for at least some of you, and that's the sort of thing that we see happen.<\/p>\n
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:40.000
\nThe work has completed, and you know, low, and behold, the manage service is not as profitable as it should be, and then the customer expects that other similar work as part of the managed service.<\/p>\n
00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:49.000
\nSo don't turn a blind eye. Put put get your eyes open and see, you know, is what you think.<\/p>\n
00:46:49.000 --> 00:46:57.000
\nYou know. You know you've got all these good things in your contract.<\/p>\n
00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:11.000
\nIs that how you're behaving? And I've seen that time and again a lot of effort going into contracts, only to then not behave as as as has been agreed.<\/p>\n
00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:21.000
\nSo just about at the end now. But let's have a look at this, allowing your business and your profitable ability to flourish so hopefully.<\/p>\n
00:47:21.000 --> 00:47:29.000
\nWe've got the man with the X. We've put the X down, and we're now saying, Okay, let's have our customers.<\/p>\n
00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:46.000
\nExpectations in line with our own and our contracts consistent with that number one, number 2 that you're contracts are treating each type of service differently, and bear in mind those aspects we're reselling services or using third-party services.<\/p>\n
00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:49.000
\nThere are different obligations. There are different risk profiles.<\/p>\n
00:47:49.000 --> 00:48:01.000
\nAnd thirdly, that the way your team works is consistent with what you have agreed with your customers and keep your contracts up to date.<\/p>\n
00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:18.000
\nSo the not, you know, something that you can do once and put away necessarily, but every now and then think about those things that might require you to change your contracts are your services changing is what's going on in the market changing are your customers.<\/p>\n
00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:23.000
\nChanging, and of course there are legal changes potentially as well.<\/p>\n
00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:28.000
\nSo I just thought I'd take a quick opportunity before we come to the question.<\/p>\n
00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:35.000
\nTime to just let you know. What is it? Degree? So I it is the agreement Lifeguard.<\/p>\n
00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:44.000
\nWhat we do is we provide legal agreements, but we also provide a nice reparound of guidance in support, because I fully appreciate that for most of you, you know, contracts is not your favorite thing.<\/p>\n
00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:51.000
\nIt may be new territory, and it's really good to know that.<\/p>\n
00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:04.000
\nHelpers on hand as you need it. It is an innovative offering, as I mentioned, I've been in it, lawyer, since the early nineties, and I could see over the years the frustration that parts have with contracts.<\/p>\n
00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:13.000
\nSo I actually went to Microsoft, and I see your partner's globally are struggling with agreements, and we would like to provide agreement solutions.<\/p>\n
00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:17.000
\nSo, although I am a practicing lawyer in New Zealand, it degree is providing services globally, and it degree itself is not a law firm.<\/p>\n
00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:31.000
\nWe providing legal agreements, I think of it as legal agreements, as a service with a strong, healthy rearound of support and guidance.<\/p>\n
00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:39.000
\nSo, as the agreement lifeguard, we're looking out for the sorts of issues that are impacting, impacting your businesses so that brings me to the end.<\/p>\n
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:53.000
\nI'm very. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have, and, as you can see here, I've put my contact details also for any later communications that you wish to have.<\/p>\n
00:49:53.000 --> 00:49:57.000
\nExcellent. So we do have some questions, so I'll just try to find them all in the chat.<\/p>\n
00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:14.000
\nYou can also use the folks if you want to, Norbert asks, do you distinguish between reselling versus including the Sas product as part of your branded sort of step?<\/p>\n
00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:34.000
\nSo so the reselling in your managed services, you know, if you, if you're including a stack of third party services, as many of you do, you're effectively reselling those services within your managed service, so you're managed service agreement needs to really clearly recognize that and<\/p>\n
00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:39.000
\nthe basis of which you are doing that supply, so that you know.<\/p>\n
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:41.000
\nYes, you know, you've got your nice per user charge.<\/p>\n
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:52.000
\nBut but in behind that there needs to be some clarification as to you know, the basis on what you're including those third-party services.<\/p>\n
00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:57.000
\nRight, so, and then Josh made a comment in the middle of what you were doing about.<\/p>\n
00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:01.000
\nThere's a difference between providing these services and facilitating the third-party services.<\/p>\n
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:07.000
\nSo clients need to know that I always make a distinction.<\/p>\n
00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:12.000
\nAnd I. I want people to realize that the contract is about the relationship.<\/p>\n
00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:20.000
\nIt's not about the specific services, and because, you know, the analogy is always to, you know, good fences make good neighbors right?<\/p>\n
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:32.000
\nNobody wants to argue about the fence until you got a branch over on somebody else's yard, and so nobody nobody wants to pay attention to the contracts until this too late.<\/p>\n
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:33.000
\nBut really it's a it's a good way to say, oh, here's what happens if you give us notice.<\/p>\n
00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:41.000
\nHere's how the relationship changes. Here's what happens with prepayment.<\/p>\n
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:44.000
\nHere's what happens with every piece of it.<\/p>\n
00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:47.000
\nAnd we don't have a lot of time.<\/p>\n
00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:54.000
\nBut how do you keep up to date? Because you know the world has changed in the last year?<\/p>\n
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:55.000
\nHmm, hmm!<\/p>\n
00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:00.000
\nIt's changed since the pandemic began. It's changed since, you know, 5 years ago, when Ransomware went insane.<\/p>\n
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:06.000
\nWe live in a different world than we did. So how do? How do we constantly keep it up to date?<\/p>\n
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:07.000
\nSo I think that you know this so much that is done for the community.<\/p>\n
00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:15.000
\nGlobally that you know, you know, like everyone else, I do a team events, and so on.<\/p>\n
00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:23.000
\nAnd there's it's a constant learning by being in this environment, by talking to Msps every day.<\/p>\n
00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:35.000
\nIn each jurisdiction, where we work on each country, where we work we work with different lawyers for the modification for those countries, for differences in law.<\/p>\n
00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:39.000
\nBut, as I said, the the legal changes are actually typically the small part.<\/p>\n
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:40.000
\nIt's it's more what's going on.<\/p>\n
00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:41.000
\nWhat sort of issues do we need to be aware of today?<\/p>\n
00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:54.000
\nAnd tomorrow, what's happening. And how does that feed into what needs to be agreed with customers?<\/p>\n
00:52:54.000 --> 00:53:01.000
\nSo it's it's it's constant, really, I think, being in this and this environment, just like everybody else, it's hard not to learn, because there are so many inputs from events, from from chats.<\/p>\n
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:09.000
\nAnd so on. And we're talking to Msps every.<\/p>\n
00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:15.000
\nRight. I also think it's important that people realize there's no such thing as all you can eat like that literally doesn't exist.<\/p>\n
00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:18.000
\nAnd Patrick says that there are certain things you know.<\/p>\n
00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:19.000
\nIt takes more than 2\u00a0h, involves a line of business app. Whatever.<\/p>\n
00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:21.000
\nThere are certain things that basically contract says these are billable, right?<\/p>\n
00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:33.000
\nYou gotta draw these lines. So because I think clients want to hear all you can eat, even if you never say the words.<\/p>\n
00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:34.000
\nHmm, hmm!<\/p>\n
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:41.000
\nThey wanna like pay a sum. And like you've talked about like oh, and then if we get this ransomware and they Wanna say, No, I shouldn't pay for that, because they thought they bought the everything.<\/p>\n
00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:44.000
\nPlan, right?<\/p>\n
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:52.000
\nHmm, that's right. Yeah, yeah. I agree that, you know and everything plan and all you can eat might sound appealing as as a thing to provide.<\/p>\n
00:53:52.000 --> 00:53:53.000
\nBut it's it's it is fraught with risk.<\/p>\n
00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:56.000
\nReally?<\/p>\n
00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:03.000
\nAlright! And how many contracts do we need cause you use the term contracts like with a client?<\/p>\n
00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:04.000
\nAm I gonna just the one or 12 or?<\/p>\n
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:06.000
\nYeah. So it doesn't need to.<\/p>\n
00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:13.000
\nIt doesn't need to be too scary. But if you think about it, you know you're providing managed services.<\/p>\n
00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:21.000
\nTypically we're providing 5 types of agreements to each different Msp, that we work with.<\/p>\n
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:22.000
\nAnd typically, it's managed services, projects projects reselling 3, 6, 5, reselling other third-party services.<\/p>\n
00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:34.000
\nSometimes, if they're not including at all, with their managed service, could be Bcdr.<\/p>\n
00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:46.000
\nIt just depends on what the focuses in what exactly it is that they need this, is the cyber security services, agreements.<\/p>\n
00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:47.000
\nAnd.<\/p>\n
00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:49.000
\nOther thing that we're most often asked for at the moment. And there's new types of agreements.<\/p>\n
00:54:49.000 --> 00:54:53.000
\nJosh asks, do you break things into the Manage Service agreement?<\/p>\n
00:54:53.000 --> 00:54:56.000
\nAnd then a statement of work.<\/p>\n
00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:07.000
\nSo the manage services. Yeah. So they can be that sort of structure with a master with different types of, you know, even the managed services we have a version that is state of work for managed services.<\/p>\n
00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:29.000
\nSo. Yes, it is. It is presented like that. And I think it's quite nice to present to the customer the agreement that is pertinent to them in terms of this is the surface rather than present the kind of a legal doc that's got all the terms.<\/p>\n
00:55:29.000 --> 00:55:30.000
\nRight.<\/p>\n
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:31.000
\nConditions first, so flip it round the other way, and so they can see.<\/p>\n
00:55:31.000 --> 00:55:32.000
\nThis is what you're doing for us. This is the basis pricing.<\/p>\n
00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:40.000
\nThis is so that's typically is, you know, like a statement of work kind of presentation.<\/p>\n
00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:41.000
\nVery good, well, we only have about 4\u00a0min, so let me go ahead and then stop the recording.<\/p>\n
00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:45.000
\nHere!<\/p>\n
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:55.000
\nThank you very much.<\/p>\n
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