In this article, you’ll learn:
- The different routes a telecoms reseller can take towards becoming an MSP.
- Which skills, services, systems and operational changes the transition can require.
- How MSPs make money, and why that shapes what they buy and who they work with.
- What MSP 2.0 means, and why communications can be a gateway to winning new customers.
- How the right communications provider can make that journey easier and less risky.
Transitioning from a reseller to a managed service provider (MSP) represents far more than just adding new products. It’s a sizeable business transformation that changes an organisation’s very essence.
Bringing new connectivity or security products to customers is only part of the story. Partners would be moving from selling individual communications products to building repeatable services. There’d be a greater deal of focus on customer outcomes, building recurring revenue and retaining long-term relationships.
Your customers aren’t looking at services in isolation anymore. They want to work with a supplier that can meet multiple requirements. Whether it’s customer experience (CX) or voice, an integrated offering goes further than relying on standalone products.
What’s the difference between a telecoms reseller and an MSP?
It would be easy to say that the main difference between a reseller and MSP is what’s being sold. The main difference, however, comes from where value is being created.
A traditional reseller model is built around products and licences. There’s a great deal of focus on connectivity and minutes, with individual customer requirements influencing a reseller’s stance. Implementation and support sit around defined products, with commercial margin being generated from the underlying service.
By contrast, MSPs find value through expertise, integration and ongoing management. Continuous support and consultancy allow partners to create a more managed, professional service. Customers look at these kinds of partners as a trusted technology advisor, especially when they can bring multiple technologies together.
Adopting an MSP mindset means stepping away from thinking about what they can sell to a customer. Partners should be thinking about what part of a customer’s technology stack they can be responsible for.
How do MSPs make money, and what shapes who they buy from?
Recurring revenue is only the starting point. MSPs make money from the value of the whole customer relationship over time. Retention, standardisation and operational efficiency all influence which suppliers they choose.
Resellers look at margin per product. MSPs ask how easily a service can be supported and repeated across their customer base.
An MSP supporting one phone system across 200 customers can make far more money than one juggling nine, even if the nine come with better buy prices. A cheaper product that creates support tickets is often a bad deal.
‘Comms could be worth £500 per month but IT could be worth £5,000 per month. If the comms breaks, we risk the entire relationship. £1 of comms revenue is worth the same as £10 of IT.’ – Jay Ball, CEO, Flotek Group
It might be a fraction of the value of an IT contract, but it’s the first thing a customer notices when it fails. The upside is small, and the downside is the whole relationship.
That’s why reliability, simplicity and support often matter more to an MSP than the cheapest product or the highest margin.
What is MSP 2.0?
MSP 1.0 helps customers run their technology. MSP 2.0 helps them run their business through technology. In practice, that means communications, CX, security, AI and automation are treated as part of how a customer operates, not as separate technology purchases.
Communications keep customers reachable and teams connected, and CX shapes how people experience the business. Security protects the data, reputation and continuity it relies on. AI and automation remove manual work, so teams can spend their time on what matters most.
As MSPs grow into this role, they move closer to what a communications provider does. That makes the partners making this shift the ones with the most room for what we offer.
Yet there’s a catch. MSP 2.0 businesses are usually built around delivering rather than selling. They have strong technical instincts, operational discipline and a good record on support and retention.
However, they’re often weaker at creating demand, meaning what they need is a simpler offer and a ready-made route to market.
What are the different routes to becoming an MSP?
There’s no defined route to becoming an MSP. We can narrow it down to a few select paths.
Building capability organically can be ideal for resellers with an established customer base and enough financial headroom to invest. Leadership is committed to the transition, with a clear view on how existing technical capability can be expanded.
Expertise in areas like cybersecurity and automation can be developed, allowing repeatable packages and managed-service propositions to be created. While there’s maximum control over the proposition, skills and processes take time to build. During that transition, the business still needs to perform.
Others could look to acquire an existing MSP. Now there’s direct access to technical talent and an active customer base. A managed service IP is already established, providing a foundation to transition.
Resellers can also partner with suppliers to carry initial complexity. Rather than employing every specialist available, these resellers can find vendors that manage migrations and provide additional technical expertise.
Partners shouldn’t expect to become ‘everything’ overnight. Providers like Gamma Communications are there to carry the operational weight.
The fourth route is to specialise. Resellers can focus on a particular sector or outcome, such as secure networking or retail technology. A more vertical focus can give a partner differentiation in terms of sector expertise and compliance.
Their strength extends beyond simply having the broadest possible product catalogue.
An MSP’s true goal is to own more of the customer outcome. It’s never a case of ‘just sell everything.’
What new skills does an MSP need?
If resellers want to successfully transition into an MSP, they’ll need to cover four key skill sets:
- Technical: Partners should prepare themselves for a deeper understanding around products. Whether it’s networking or AI, technical expertise can prove critical when selling new services.
- Commercial: The ability to demonstrate business outcomes and package managed services is often overlooked. Communications and IT sales cultures can be very different, especially around buying cycles and customer conversations.
- Service: Resellers would now have to think about onboarding, lifecycle management and ongoing optimisation. Continuous, readily available support is what gives MSPs a more differentiated, complete service package.
- Marketing: It’s possible to apply telecoms-style outbound sales and marketing disciplines to an IT business, including email sequencing and LinkedIn activity. Providers can support MSPs with pricing guidance and ready-to-use marketing materials.
How should a telecoms reseller choose, run and package its first managed services?
Three decisions matter during the move to becoming an MSP. That involves:
- Which services to add first.
- How the operating model changes.
- How to package the result.
Services are chosen by adjacency. Start with existing customer conversations and see where demand is strongest. If customers are looking at CX, for example, now is the best time to look at contact centres, AI-enabled customer interactions, and analytics.
Prospective MSPs need to plan for an operational change that is bigger than the product change. They need to consider lifecycle management and the support offered as part of each product. Each service sold must be reliable enough to both work and avoid putting existing relationships at risk.
These services also need to be packaged appropriately. Technology, managed support and outcomes should all come together to create a stronger proposition. Simplicity is crucial here, since unfamiliar telecom terminology and complexity can become a reason not to sell at all.
Why can the MSP transition be difficult?
The move to MSP does come with its own challenges.
Technical teams will take time to trust new, unfamiliar technology. If MSPs try to launch too many propositions simultaneously, then there’s limited time to define ownership between separate teams.
Too many vendors might have been retained, and capabilities could be built before demand exists. The hardest system to integrate might not be technology. It could be your existing ways of working.
Why can communications be a gateway to winning new customers?
MSPs can only grow their existing customer base so far. They win an IT customer, sell more managed services and eventually saturate the installed base. Growth slows when no new customers enter the funnel.
Communications offer a different way in. It’s transactional enough to open the door and important enough to prove delivery.
By winning trust through onboarding, service and support, an MSP earns the right to talk about the wider IT estate. From there, the relationship can expand into services like cybersecurity and managed services.
Many MSPs hesitate, because voice raises concerns around billing complexity and specialist knowledge. The answer is to make communications easy to package inside the managed service they already believe in.
How can a communications provider support the move?
The right provider makes managed services easier to sell, deliver and run. That means more than a product catalogue. A partner needs the commercial wrapper that gets a service to market. Look for:
- Simple commercial models: Predictable, easy-to-quote pricing that’s simple to explain to customers.
- Sales enablement: Proposal templates, customer stories, discovery questions and demo support to help win the first deals.
- Marketing support: Ready-to-use campaign material, such as co-brandable content, email sequences and social posts, that makes the service easy to launch.
- Training: Commercial and technical training, so sales and support teams can position and deliver each service with confidence.
- Operational assistance: Help managing migrations, compliance and other complex subject matters.
Gamma’s role is to help partners build a successful managed services business, not simply to give them more products. Through commercial models, sales enablement, marketing support, training, an extensive portfolio and a framework built to enable sustainable growth, resellers can expect a smoother journey towards becoming an MSP.
Partners like Flotek have already made that shift. Through Webex’s API capabilities, they’ve built their own analytics service that adds value around communications data rather than overhauling the existing system. They showed the initiative to solve a broader customer problem and create differentiated recurring value.
Becoming an MSP doesn’t happen the day you add cybersecurity or managed connectivity to your portfolio. It happens when partners take responsibility for more of the customer’s technology outcome. The shift occurs after building repeatable managed services around that responsibility, with the skills and support needed to deliver them consistently.
So, where do you start? Think about the business you want to become, not the list of products you could sell. Understand how your own business makes money, and build services that improve customer lifetime value, retention and efficiency.
Quick Answers: From Telecoms Reseller to MSP: What Does the Journey Really Involve?
What is a managed service provider (MSP)?
An MSP takes ongoing responsibility for part of a customer’s technology environment, such as communications, connectivity, security or IT support, for a recurring fee. They design and monitor services over time, with success tied to customer outcomes.
What is the difference between an MSP and a telecoms reseller?
A telecoms reseller typically earns margin on products and usage, such as lines, minutes and connectivity. An MSP earns recurring revenue by managing a service and its outcomes.
How do MSPs make money?
MSPs make money from recurring revenue, retention, customer lifetime value, standardisation and operational efficiency. Those drivers shape what they buy: reliable, simple, standardised services often matter more than the lowest price.
What is MSP 2.0?
MSP 1.0 helps customers run their technology. MSP 2.0 helps them run their business through technology. These MSPs are strong at delivery, so they typically need a simpler offer and a ready-made route to market.
Can a telecoms reseller become an MSP?
Yes, although there is no defined way to achieve this. Resellers can build capability organically, acquire an existing MSP, partner with a provider that carries the operational complexity, or specialise in a particular sector or outcome. The right route depends on investment capacity, existing skills and customer demand.
What services should a telecoms reseller add first?
Start with adjacencies to your existing customer relationships and internal skills. Choose one, build a repeatable service around it, and prove it with existing customers before adding the next.
How can resellers create more recurring revenue?
Wrap services in onboarding, support, monitoring and reporting. Sell complementary services to existing customers and provide long-term lifecycle support, including optimisation and renewal. Together, these shift income from one-off sales to ongoing value.
Why are communications a gateway for MSP growth?
MSPs can only grow their existing customer base so far. Communications is easier to buy than a full IT contract, so it can open the door to a new customer, then expand into Microsoft 365, cybersecurity and managed support.
How can a communications provider support MSP transformation?
A communications provider helps partners take managed services to market through simple commercial models, sales enablement, marketing support and training. It also carries operational complexity, such as migrations, so partners can grow at their own pace.
