2022 Guide to MSP Success
Cybercrime Is Here to Stay
Cybercriminals haven’t slowed down their malicious actions just because the world is dealing with a pandemic. Instead, they’re finding a lot more soft targets for their ransomware, phishing scams, and footholds.
MSPs must continually defend their clients from these attacks while increasing the overall awareness and education among their customers’ staff members. Security audits and training programs are critical to creating multiple lines of defense.
MSPs also can’t let their customers get distracted and not provide adequate funding for proactive defense measures, as well as putting in place the proper technology and processes for backup and recovery. Now more than ever, most businesses simply cannot function without their IT systems running like clockwork, so there’s plenty of reasons to invest in this area even though it’s not a particularly exciting line item in the IT budget.
The Supply Chain Will Still Be a Mess
While there seems to be enough toilet paper in stock these days, plenty of other items are still hard to get your hands on. This makes for unpredictable procurement and inflation-driven price spikes on many items and an overall logistical nightmare.
MSPs must be transparent with customers that delays and price increases are inevitable. Longer acceptable lead times and pricing flexibility are worth reviewing both at the business and contractual levels. MSPs might also consider increasing their clients’ inventories–and even their own–on key hardware components.
Your Competition Isn’t Sitting Still
The MSP pie keeps growing, which is attracting more and more players to enter the market, not to mention emboldening current MSPs to grow and expand via acquisitions and mergers. They all know SMBs need their help with IT and are more than willing to take that business, sometimes at a lower cost.
They’re also not above poaching your talent for their own growing workforces, especially since it no longer matters where they live anymore. This forces MSPs to protect their own houses while trying to conquer new territory and hold tight onto the customers they’ve already got.
In a crowded, competitive marketplace, it’s all about differentiation. And while some may prefer a race to the bottom driven by underpricing, the truly smart play is in broadening and refining the services you can offer to clients while improving your own in-house efficiency.
SMBs prefer a one-stop shop for their IT outsourcing, so ensure your portfolio covers all the bases. And when it comes to pricing and profitability, nothing boosts your numbers like being able to manage more seats with the same staff thanks to superior tools and automation.
Expect the Unexpected
At some point in the year to come, MSPs and their customers will once again be thrown for a loop when a new–or returning–disruption comes our way. While oracles and crystal balls and pundits might have their own hunches and hints, what matters most is flexibility and resiliency.
Organizations able to nimbly respond and adjust will come out ahead of those too brittle or stubborn to do the same. Many businesses are increasing their 2022 IT spending because now they know they can’t live without the systems and solutions that have helped them stay afloat during the past two years. MSPs can help them spend those dollars wisely on solutions that match the needs and demands of 2022 and beyond.
Dan Tomaszewski is SVP of Channel & Community, Kaseya.
This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.
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