Written by David Mason, Inside Channel Development Manager at SiteLock
Cyber criminals are becoming more lethal and sophisticated,
and business owners are feeling the pressure. As a result, they're
increasingly leaning on their managed service providers (MSPs) to address important security
concerns.
With that in mind, the MSP industry
is at a crossroads. Successful MSPs build their business on meeting customer
needs, but this new ask means they
risk losing business in the upcoming year - unless they find a way to quickly
ramp up their cybersecurity knowledge and offerings.
So what does this new and significant
expectation mean for MSPs? Specifically, how does hyper-awareness of
cybersecurity threats change the strategy for creating deeper, long-term
relationships with customers?
Stepping
up to fill the skills gap
In the face of a labor crunch that is
predicted to leave 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs unfilled by 2021 (up
from 1 million in 2014), CIOs, CISOs and IT security
teams at organizations of all types and sizes are increasingly looking to MSPs
for help in identifying and thwarting hackers and cybercriminals.
Many MSPs have already felt the weight of
this new role. They know they have to do something, but don't know where to
begin. After all, serving as a security advisor isn't traditionally a core part
of the job description for MSPs. While they've addressed certain aspects of
security, customers now expect complete solutions. To respond to security concerns,
MSPs need to cultivate deep expertise in security issues and help close
customers' knowledge gap by consulting on a wider range of security-related
topics.
On the upside, customers are willing to
direct significant spend toward solving the lack of security knowledge in their
organizations. According to Gartner, MSP spending by customers is forecasted to reach $985 million this year, up 5.5 percent from 2017. This
represents a promising business opportunity for MSPs, but only if they're
prepared to capitalize on it.
Achieving
holistic security expertise
In the quest to acquire expertise in the
security realm, MSPs can't settle for operating as a "me too" provider - a
service provider that recommends obvious measures without going deeper into
customers' unique business needs.
Going forward, the most successful MSPs
will offer a holistic approach that provides added value in a few keys ways:
- Delivering end-to-end security knowledge. Currently, most MSPs don't train sellers to help customers
address security concerns. But when a major attack happens, customers will have
questions, and MSPs must be able to proactively address those concerns before
customers ask for solutions.
The ability to provide proactive service
builds trust and helps the customer view their MSP as an expert. To achieve this standard, salespeople must understand
customers' goals for their organizations and make a plan for their security
solutions based on where they hope to go. The result: Customers see that
the MSP cares about their success and knows how to secure for it.
- Selling the solution, not the pieces. MSPs historically provided prescriptive recommendations, and the customer would be
satisfied. They could tell a customer which firewall to use, implement a backup strategy, set up
control access and leave it at that. Now, MSPs need to take a big-picture
approach and provide a holistic strategy, showing customers how the
pieces all work together. In doing so, MSPs should
provide multiple options of holistic solutions
and take the time to help the customer
understand how each option works and aligns with
the unique elements of the business.
Business owners
understand that the security landscape is becoming more challenging. When they
turn to their MSP, they expect to find a partner, not a vendor. And that means
MSPs need to make sure they're ready, willing and able to serve as the kind of
consultative security partners their customers need.
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About the Author
David Mason is the
Inside Channel Manager at SiteLock where he oversees a team of Inside Channel
Executives focused on growing the SiteLock Partner Channel. He has over 11
years of experience growing partner channels in the domain, hosting, backup and
security space. He has worked with some of the largest partners in the Hosting
and MSP industry, developing successful go-to-market strategies that provide
measurable value to end users.