Who can really sell Managed Services to SMBs?

Recent news that Staples is getting into the Managed Services business got us thinking: What does it really take to close SMBs on these outsourced services ?  Will SMBs really want to source IT services from the same place they buy paper and toner ?  Will ‘Staples Advantage’ in store salespeople be able to leverage the wide and shallow relationships with hundreds of thousands of SMBs into a more profitable services relationship ?

It appears that Staples is starting with Print services — however Channel Matters could find no website content describing these services @ Staples.com or CorporateExpress.com.  This print services area might make sense — but it would appear there is a huge leap to get to building the confidence and technical integrity required to convince an SMB that site hosting, Security services, and app hosting can be delivered with 99% SLAs from an office products retailer.

Of course , five years ago, we never thought CDW could sell Enterprise class Servers, Storage and Networking gear —- and clearly that is no longer the case . And they are making a good go of it with managed services  resell from their  Berbee acquisition.

Back to Staples:  You’ve got to love the database list and DemandGen potential they bring to the game.  Who would not want to expose a free trial offer of 10 seats of XYZ security suite to that list! I don’t know a VAR that would not want 4% of that number!