This is the first blog post in a 12-week series dedicated to helping the owners of MSPs understand and adopt the recommendations of Consumption Economics—The New Rules of Tech. Chuck Daniels, CEO of D3 Unified Communications, shares his 30+ years of industry insight each week.

In 2011, the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) – the technology industry trade association whose members are the largest technology companies in America – published, Consumption Economics – the New Rules of Tech which sounded the alarm for the entire technology industry.  The authors outlined the dramatic changes the Cloud would bring to the technology industry – changes that were for the most part financially detrimental to the business models that generated steady profits for TSIA members over the past 30 years.  The authors also suggested adjustments technology vendors needed to make to their business models in order to survive the transformational shifts about to impact their industry.

Below are the seven shifts that Consumption Economics predicted in 2011 would permanently change forever how customers consumed technology services. Today’s challenge is to think about these shifts and ask yourself, “So now what do we do?”

1. The risk in the purchase decision will shift from the customer toward the supplier.
2. Complexity’s long and illustrious reign will end. Simplicity will be king.
3. Cloud customer aggregators will shrink the direct market for tech infrastructure providers.
4. Big changes will come to the channel ecosystem.
5. Cheaper enterprise software will emerge.
6. IT departments will “get out of the way” of end users.
7. Technology companies will capitalize on end-user behavior data.

 

Because D3UC is dedicated to and entrenched with the MSP community, each week a new chapter of Consumption Economics will be discussed with emphasis focused on the challenges faced by VARs and MSPs who are transforming their companies’ business models to survive and thrive in the new, cloud-driven world.

If you would like an overview of the book Consumption Economics, you can download a copy of the “abridged” version written by the TSIA from our website.

Week 1: Consumption Economics Predictions Came True – Now What Do We Do?
Week 2: How Good We Had It: The Money-Making Machine Known as High-Tech
Week 3: Shifting Clouds and Changing Rules
Week 4: Looking Over the Margin Wall
Week 5: Learning to Love Micro-Transactions
Week 6: The Data Piling Up in the Corner
Week 7: Consumption Development: The Art and Science of Intelligent Listening
Week 8: Consumption Marketing: Micro-Marketing and Micro-Buzz
Week 9: Consumption Sales: After a Great Run, the Classic Model Gets an Overhaul
Week 10: Consumption Services: Will They Someday Own “The Number”?
Week 11: How Fast Should You Transform?
Week 12: A Few Words From Chuck – The Epilogue

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Published: May 2015
Reviewed:
March 2017
November 2016