When I explain the value that Managed Video as a Service provides to customers I like to stay simple (ducks and bunnies) and describe it in two dimensions: ‘more of the same’ (similar value as legacy video solutions just more of it) & ‘new & distinct’ (value not currently realized in traditional environment). Today as I was reading Security Magazine’s Why It’s Time to Consider Managed Services I was struck at how well the traditional ‘oustourcing’ rationale applies to MVaaS. It also provided a bit of déjà vu as I spent a fair bit of time in management consulting advising clients on the strategic benefits of focusing on their core business.  So I thought I’d focus on a couple relevant MVaaS outsourcing benefits.  Here are two areas worthy of conversation:  

Immediate access to scale & expertise. In the traditional path a customer can invest all the upfront time, capital, and resources to select, deploy, and manage, grow and eventually upgrade a video system. If the customer is small to mid-sized (sub-scale) the best systems may not make economic sense. With an ‘outsourced’ MVaaS solution a customer can gets immediate turn-key solution that is more robust as they access the service providers scale as well as access to the continuous improvements delivered by the ‘as a service model’. All for an easy to digest monthly charge.  Sure you can develop all of your own from scratch over time (developing exception reporting for example) or you can let an expert accelerate the learning curve and provide an immediate head start. Speed to results.

For customers that have scale, outsourcing typically represents value through opportunity cost, or opportunity gain depending how you are looking at it. This one is best conveyed at 10,000 feet, and simply asks – what business are you in? Ok, would you like to spend more of your time and resource on that business or in the management and administration of your video system? Where do you think you will get better returns on your invested hour or dollar? The difference in the return for each is the opportunity cost. This value can be unlocked by letting an expert do the ‘non-core’ activities.

Net-Net while other areas of our proposition may deliver more, for some customers this qualifies as ‘new and distinct’ value worth talking about.