ScalePad’s Eric Torres: ‘We Can Automate Your QBR Process’ Through Lifecycle Insights

‘You’ve got all the tools in place. We hook into those tools, and we’re pulling that data out of those so that your QBR process is a matter of a 20-minute prep before you walk into that meeting,’ said ScalePad’s Eric Torres.

Through four acquisitions this year—Lifecycle Insights, Cognition360, ControlMap and Adept Managed Continuity—ScalePad is positioning itself to help MSPs address common challenges, according to one company executive.

MSPs struggle with five components of their business: QBR (quarterly business review) prep time and vCIO strategy; warranties and IT asset disposal; backup management; proper business intelligence and analytics; and internal and external security posture, said Eric Torres, vice president of channel at Vancouver, Canada-based software vendor ScalePad.

Those components led to 31 percent of MSPs losing money in the first quarter of 2023, according to ConnectWise’s Service Leadership Index, a benchmark of solution provider financial performance.

Torres spoke Sunday at CRN parent The Channel Company’s XChange NexGen 2023 in Houston this week to a room full of MSPs and other solution providers on how they can automate more to grow their businesses.

[Related: ScalePad’s Torres To MSPs: ‘Automate As Many Of The Manual Processes That You Have’]

He highlighted Dover, Del.-based Lifecycle Insights, which ScalePad acquired in April to complement ScalePad Lifecycle Manager, and is a provider of a vCIO reporting tool, risk assessments and asset life-cycle management offerings.

Lifecycle Insights’ assessment platform, asset and user inventories allow for intuitive reporting around customer risks and goals. The customer success module allows executives, vCIOs and account managers to gain a deeper look into customer segmentation, health and stack alignment.

“Lifecycle Manager is a tool to automate your QBR process,” Torres said. “You’ve got all the tools in place. We hook into those tools, and we’re pulling that data out of those so that your QBR process is a matter of a 20-minute prep before you walk into that meeting.”

He said the first thing MSPs struggle with when it comes to QBRs is getting clients to the table.

“Your customers see that as a sales call,” he said. “They see that as you coming in there to tell them, ‘Hey, buy this.’ Yes, you are there to talk with them, but it’s more about budgeting purposes. Your job during that QBR process is to talk about the next year, the next two years, not so much the immediate project. Lifecycle Insights is that No. 1 player when it comes to developing that budgeting strategy.”

Travis Woods, CEO of Novato, Calif.-based Fort Point IT, said ScalePad is “one of those companies” that consistently innovates to help MSPs increase their maturity and adhere to NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) best practices.

“ScalePad’s Lifecycle Management is such an important part of helping MSPs adhere to the NIST framework by helping us keep eyes on the devices we manage,” he said.