The MSP landscape is changing. Fast.
Did you know that 68% of MSPs (Managed Services Providers) experienced growth in 2023, according to Datto’s State of the MSP Report?
And, according to tech research firm Canalys, the average MSP should expect upwards of an additional 12% growth in 2024. That’s an astounding level of rapid change.
As the landscape of Managed Services Providers (MSPs) grows and evolves, so too do MSPs’ expectations and operational intricacies. MSPs are investing in maturing their operations.
To adapt to this evolving landscape, the Apptium team recently completed a comprehensive redesign of the Cloud Commerce Platform's Admin Portal, catering to MSPs and Distributors involved in B2B2X cloud commerce.
What We Did
This redesign is more than just a facelift; it's a strategic response aimed at empowering MSPs in their current operations and future endeavours.
The Admin Portal 360 Redesign, now available to all Apptium Cloud Commerce Platform customers, contains over 20 major updates to our platform and primarily delivers three new and enhanced capabilities to our users:
- End-to-End Interoperability: Recognizing the crucial role of integration, Apptium introduced 42 new API endpoints and standardized Product Information Model (PIM), allowing seamless interaction with diverse workflows.
- Complete Visibility: Addressing the challenge of process fragmentation, the redesign includes an overhauled Orders module, new reports, aggregate views, and features ensuring all changes are tracked and accounted for.
- Pricing Flexibility and Transparency: Tackling the challenge of information silos, the redesign provides users with informed decision-making tools by offering insights into cost, margin, MSRP, and more, along with increased control over special pricing and private offers.
Why We Did It
Interoperability as a Priority
In a 2023 report, AIMultiple Research found that 90% of MSPs recognize the pivotal role of application integration in their business and their clients'. A staggering 18% identified the time wasted switching between applications as the primary growth barrier in 2024. Acknowledging the significant time wasted on switching between applications, Apptium strategically redesigned the Admin Portal with interoperability at its core.
And that core of interoperability and seamless experience runs throughout each of the major changes in this redesign. Our 42 new public API endpoints allow MSP Resellers and Distributors to seamlessly push data into and pull data out of the platform. Our headless commerce APIs now support transactions and management via any digital front-end. And by standardizing our Pricing Information Model across all cloud providers, we’re able to provide a common API endpoint for provisioning. These updates empower MSP Resellers and Distributors to seamlessly integrate the platform into their existing workflows.
Ensuring Complete Visibility
Addressing process fragmentation, frequently cited as the top barrier for process automation, our Admin Portal redesign prioritized total visibility. In doing so, we focused on three major areas: data integrity, data access, and data consistency.
To assist our users with data integrity, we redesigned our Orders module to act as a reliable system of record, logging and capturing every subscription transaction across channels.
To emphasize easy data access, we reconfigured our data architecture and user interface. We ensured that users can now find essential data within two or three clicks, minimizing navigation time and facilitating more efficient data management.
To ensure data consistency, we invested heavily in building functionality to auto-discover changes across channels.
We know how challenging it is for MSPs and Distributors to maintain consistent data across many different systems, so we built this feature into our platform to sync data, maintain an audit history, and automate the generation of orders for auto-discovered transactions in any connected system. We also made sure changes made to data in one place in our platform ripple across the entire platform, minimizing manual efforts and reducing the risk of human error causing discrepancies in billing.
Pricing Transparency and Flexibility
To address pain points related to pricing, the redesign simplifies special pricing and renewal management features. Users can now apply or schedule special time-bound pricing or discounts to individual subscriptions, offering flexibility to both reseller and end-user subscriptions. To ensure our users are always making informed decisions, the enhanced transparency in pricing throughout the Admin Portal provides constant visibility into margin, cost, MSRP, and end-customer price, streamlining decision-making processes.
In Conclusion
With the introduction of the 360 Admin Portal Redesign, we've not only addressed critical feedback but significantly elevated the user experience by enhancing interoperability, ensuring users have the utmost confidence in accessing a comprehensive overview of their operations, and introducing greater pricing flexibility and transparency.
Contact our team today to see how the newly redesigned Admin Portal can work for you.
.png)
