An MSP can keep every client’s systems running and still never find time to help those businesses grow. When assessments, migrations and support all compete for the same engineers, the proactive conversations tend to get pushed to next month.
That capacity crunch is what Patrick O’Dell, Ingram Micro’s executive director of sales and services, sees holding MSPs back from becoming strategic service providers (SSPs). He made the case for the shift on the main stage at The MSP Summit, held Sept. 28–30 at Loews Royal Pacific in Orlando, Fla. In a follow-up interview with Managed Services Journal, he explained how MSPs can take on a bigger advisory role by leaning on delivery resources outside their own four walls.
Know what the shift is worth
O’Dell boils the difference down to how providers get paid. MSPs are paid for time and tickets, so their margins are capped by headcount and success gets measured in uptime and response times. SSPs are paid for outcomes, their margins grow with clients’ cloud spend, and success is measured by how much those clients grow and how efficiently they run.
That gap matters most when an owner decides to sell. According to O’Dell’s presentation, MSPs built on break-fix and project-heavy revenue typically sell for 4x to 6x EBITDA. SSPs with 80% or more recurring, consumption-based revenue command 10x to 12x, which works out to nearly double the exit price for the same profit. As one of his slides put it, a buyer isn’t paying for last year’s work; they’re paying for next year’s certainty.
Start with a business outcome
In O’Dell’s view, SSPs show up with roadmaps and recommendations before the customer asks for them. They measure success by business results like cost savings, quality of revenue, speed and risk reduction instead of ticket times and SLAs.
Your next client review is a good place to try this. Instead of walking through ticket stats, ask which process is slowing the business down or which costs keep catching the client by surprise. Pick one problem, put a number on what it’s costing today and agree on a target you can both measure.
A cloud conversation, for example, should get to whether a migration will actually improve the customer’s economics or give them capabilities they don’t have today. Uptime still matters, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you talk about.
Share delivery work before expanding payroll
Calyx, an Ingram Micro partner O’Dell highlighted on stage, is a good example of an MSP that had hit a staffing ceiling. The company handled its own assessments and migrations, so it could only take on as much as its engineers’ time and certifications allowed, and delivery work kept eating into time with clients.
“The capacity was capped by their own bench,” O’Dell says.
Today, Ingram Micro fields and funds Calyx’s technical delivery. Calyx has taken on 34 projects so far (21 completed and 13 in progress), representing $184,300 in total delivered value supported by hyperscaler and Ingram Micro funding. A lot of that work started with Calyx going to its existing customers with fully funded assessments, which then turned into funded migrations.
“Their growth now scales with deal flow, not just head count,” O’Dell says.
Calyx also didn’t have to bet on future growth by adding staff up front. It’s using Ingram Micro’s delivery teams and funding to “get momentum first and then make the decision of hiring staff,” O’Dell says.
If you’re weighing a similar move, figure out exactly where your bottleneck is before you post a job listing. Keep the customer relationship and the business conversation in-house, and consider bringing in outside help for specialized assessment, migration or implementation work. Just make sure everyone knows who’s scoping the project, who’s talking to the customer and who handles escalations and support after go-live. Once real demand and margins show up, you’ll have a much better idea of who to hire.
Check the funding fine print before you pitch
Funded assessments make it a lot easier to start a cloud conversation with a customer who isn’t sure they’re ready. According to O’Dell, the money is already out there. As his slide put it, “The gap isn’t the money. It’s access.”
The programs he pointed to include AWS’ Cloud Viability Assessment (CVA) and Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), Microsoft’s Azure Accelerate and Google Cloud’s RaMP. None of them are new, but O’Dell admits they can be “kind of a pain” to access on your own, and that’s where Ingram Micro steps in to simplify the process.
There are strings attached. Some programs require a minimum workload size or spend, and some require partners to hold specific competencies. For smaller deals, Ingram Micro offers what O’Dell calls “t-shirt size” options, including MAP for SMB, which his presentation described as fully funded by Ingram Micro for migrations under $100,000 in annual recurring revenue.
Before you put a proposal in front of a customer, confirm what the program covers, which milestones it requires and what costs you’ll still carry. And keep that funding out of your own margin math. A funded migration can get you in the door, but the managed service that follows still needs to pay for itself.
Build the ongoing service into the roadmap
O’Dell’s presentation lays out a six-stage cycle – assess, migrate, enable AI, govern, manage and grow – where each outcome sets up the next opportunity. Every trip through that cycle moves an MSP a little closer to operating as an SSP.
After a cloud migration, the recurring work might include stabilization, rightsizing, cost optimization and security reviews using tools such as Microsoft Entra ID, Defender and Purview. On the AI side, it could mean training users, tracking adoption and setting governance policies. O’Dell pointed to Ingram Micro’s Copilot Launchpad, a funded service built around Microsoft’s free Copilot licenses that handles training, enablement and usage governance so more of those trials turn into paid licenses.
Decide what that ongoing service includes, how often you’ll review it with the client and what it costs before the first project wraps up. Then keep reporting against the business goal you agreed on at the start, not just the operational metrics.
Keep your sales team and your lane
So if the numbers look this good, why aren’t more MSPs making the jump? O’Dell says many partners have a proven core business, such as virtualization, and understandably don’t want to walk away from it.
“It’s a little bit of risk, a little bit of fear of getting out of a comfort zone, and then it’s certainly staffing,” he says. Owners assume they’ll have to hire, earn new certifications, learn the funding programs and figure out MRR billing before they can even get started.
O’Dell doesn’t think it needs to be that disruptive. When VARs moved into managed services, many had to rethink their sales teams entirely. He doesn’t see the move to SSP playing out that way. “I don’t think it’s the same conversation at all,” he says. MSPs can keep their current team, their customer relationships and the work they’re already good at.
The model relies on co-delivery instead. Ingram Micro’s engineers can work under the MSP’s brand when a deal calls for white-label delivery, and the MSP keeps ownership of the customer. Over time, O’Dell says, partners that “ride shotgun” with Ingram Micro’s delivery teams pick up the expertise to handle more of that work themselves.
Test the approach with existing clients
O’Dell sees the biggest untapped opportunity in the long tail of SMB customers. A lot of MSPs have their big customers and big projects down, he says, but they don’t have the capacity to proactively assess, migrate, enable AI, govern and manage across all of their smaller accounts. “You’ve got to have an engine and a partner to help you scale,” he says.
A 90-day pilot is a manageable way to test it. In the first month, pick three existing SMB customers with a clear business problem and document where things stand. In month two, line up your delivery partner and funding, agree on who does what and kick off one scoped project. In month three, look at the results, the effort it took, the margin and whether there’s a recurring service to build from it. If it works, do it again with the next group of customers.
None of this requires walking away from what got your business where it is today. “You continue to go do the things that you do really well,” O’Dell says.
