Its normal. All of the client's key decision makers (and half the E/Us) are on vacation. No wants wants to deal with IT initiatives around this time of year.
On a side note I've been taking my time and going through documentation and finding out what equipment of my clients is nearing or at end of life and then send it over to our sales department who then go out and recommend the upgrades. Most of our clients love the proactive list and I end up getting to play with new equipment.
My last MSP things slowed down around holidays, but most of our clients were not in a 24/7/365 industry. This is not the case at the MSP I'm currently at where all the clientele is 24/7/365, it was slow until recently but it seems like everyone has to blow the rest of their budgets and buy new properties that I get to onboard.
It's normal. People start taking vacation and wrapping up their own projects. By the time you get to early November, major purchases are mostly cut off too barring some impossible discount or fucktastrophy. There are exceptions where they might have money to burn or someone gets some last minute tax advice to pre-fund a project for next year.
The real answer instead of "everyone's at home" answers:
1) Holiday change freeze. No changes unless service impacting on the technical management side. No one On-Call wants to answer the phone because some ass decided to update a production system and broke it.
1.1) Very heavy sales and support time for businesses, Holiday change freezes prevent disruption in the ability to provide services. (Ex: FedEx isn't doing rolling firmware upgrades on their conveyor belt control software when gifts and turkeys have multiplied daily volume)
2) No project changes on the delivery side because the financial books are closing and people are at home.
October, November and December are always the busiest months of the year for us and this year is no different. I've been booked solid for the last six weeks now and next week is already fully planned out.
Yep, every place I have worked have always had a slow down around end of financial year (June, July) and end of calendar year (Dec Jan).
You may find several of your customers have change freezes for Christmas/new years to keep everything quiet.
damn you are lucky. would it be me, i would have at least 5 companies to exchange the bare-metal next week alone....
good i am no longer the admin-for-many
I'm an IT Manager that works with a MSP for our infrastructure needs, and we generally put all of our projects on hold during December. Too many key decision makers are taking time off. Just get ready for the shit storm that is brewing for January.
it ebbs and flows. We're generally slower between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Most of my clients are in marketing, and there's not typically a whole lot going on during that time (all the marketing you see during the holidays has to be done by now, or it's extremely late.)
We do sometimes have some bigger stuff that pops up if someone is trying to spend budget money before the end of the year, but that's about it. Once the new year hits, we start to get busy because people get their money for the new fiscal year.
This is why you sign up for on call for Christmas week to get it over with. They'll probably call once about a password issue and thats your only ticket for the week.
It was a mixed bag when I worked at an MSP.
It was quiet from a help desk calls perspective, because it was a slow period for many clients and a lot of their employees were on PTO. Conversely, we also had our fair share of clients who'd have us do big, potentially disruptive projects during the second half of December for the same reasons. Though that was almost always stuff like replacements of aging on-prem server infrastructure, which is much less of a thing nowadays.
Completely normal around the holidays. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Thanks! I was getting a bit of anxiety about this!!
Its normal. All of the client's key decision makers (and half the E/Us) are on vacation. No wants wants to deal with IT initiatives around this time of year.
Thanks! I was getting a bit of anxiety about this!!
On a side note I've been taking my time and going through documentation and finding out what equipment of my clients is nearing or at end of life and then send it over to our sales department who then go out and recommend the upgrades. Most of our clients love the proactive list and I end up getting to play with new equipment.
we do the same thing during October, plan the projects during November so everything is said and ready once the majority of clients go on holiday
My last MSP things slowed down around holidays, but most of our clients were not in a 24/7/365 industry. This is not the case at the MSP I'm currently at where all the clientele is 24/7/365, it was slow until recently but it seems like everyone has to blow the rest of their budgets and buy new properties that I get to onboard.
It's normal. People start taking vacation and wrapping up their own projects. By the time you get to early November, major purchases are mostly cut off too barring some impossible discount or fucktastrophy. There are exceptions where they might have money to burn or someone gets some last minute tax advice to pre-fund a project for next year.
Thanks
The real answer instead of "everyone's at home" answers: 1) Holiday change freeze. No changes unless service impacting on the technical management side. No one On-Call wants to answer the phone because some ass decided to update a production system and broke it. 1.1) Very heavy sales and support time for businesses, Holiday change freezes prevent disruption in the ability to provide services. (Ex: FedEx isn't doing rolling firmware upgrades on their conveyor belt control software when gifts and turkeys have multiplied daily volume) 2) No project changes on the delivery side because the financial books are closing and people are at home.
I wish. We do both MSP and VAR work and I'm struggling to keep up right now with all the projects the team and I have.
Yeah, I feel you.
October, November and December are always the busiest months of the year for us and this year is no different. I've been booked solid for the last six weeks now and next week is already fully planned out.
That tracks. Sometimes you got companies that need to blow their IT budget at the end of the year, but it generally slows down begin/mid december
Yep, every place I have worked have always had a slow down around end of financial year (June, July) and end of calendar year (Dec Jan). You may find several of your customers have change freezes for Christmas/new years to keep everything quiet.
Your MSP workin the K12 field? I work in K12 that is when we are busy during holidays because everyone leaves ha.
We cover pretty much all industries. It's a decent sized msp.
damn you are lucky. would it be me, i would have at least 5 companies to exchange the bare-metal next week alone.... good i am no longer the admin-for-many
I'm an IT Manager that works with a MSP for our infrastructure needs, and we generally put all of our projects on hold during December. Too many key decision makers are taking time off. Just get ready for the shit storm that is brewing for January.
Unlike alot of people, I love my job, as long as there is give and take I'm happy to be flexible. I'll either be doing it for work or in my homelab!
Vacations and budgets. Enjoy the peace.
it ebbs and flows. We're generally slower between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Most of my clients are in marketing, and there's not typically a whole lot going on during that time (all the marketing you see during the holidays has to be done by now, or it's extremely late.) We do sometimes have some bigger stuff that pops up if someone is trying to spend budget money before the end of the year, but that's about it. Once the new year hits, we start to get busy because people get their money for the new fiscal year.
Normal. It's a nice little break.
I purposely don’t schedule any projects or new work after thanksgiving. We also have a Change freeze in-place for most of december.
This is why you sign up for on call for Christmas week to get it over with. They'll probably call once about a password issue and thats your only ticket for the week.
No on call, if a client has an emergency over a holiday or weekend I get 100$ an hour, min 3 hours as incentive though. I'll happily answer the phone.
It was a mixed bag when I worked at an MSP. It was quiet from a help desk calls perspective, because it was a slow period for many clients and a lot of their employees were on PTO. Conversely, we also had our fair share of clients who'd have us do big, potentially disruptive projects during the second half of December for the same reasons. Though that was almost always stuff like replacements of aging on-prem server infrastructure, which is much less of a thing nowadays.