Acronis announced today the results of a
new survey conducted by Omdia (formerly Ovum), which shows that the most
requested service that customers want from managed service providers
(MSPs) is security.
In
the research report titled "Understanding the Security and Data Backup
Market for Managed Service Providers (MSPs)," an Acronis-supported
survey was conducted involving 263 MSPs in the U.K. and the U.S. that
serve small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Acronis is making the full report available today. In conjunction with the release of the report, Acronis is also hosting a live webinar on June 11 to help MSPs better prepare for future challenges.
Analyzing
the results, MSPs showed an overwhelming demand for reliable security
offerings: 97% of respondents indicated the importance of ensuring
minimal data loss or corruption in the event of an attack, and 88%
report needing to be able to rapidly mitigate damage for discovered
cyberthreats.
In
addition, 89% of respondents expressed the need to offer a service that
goes beyond anti-virus, anti-ransomware, and firewalls. Acronis Chief
Cyber Officer Gaidar Magdanurov comments that the findings are in line
with the feedback the company has received in the last few years.
"Service providers are looking to earn higher profit, avoid customer
churn, and improve the ease of use of their technology stacks for their
teams. In the survey, 84% of respondents confirmed that it is difficult
to work with multiple vendors and suppliers for each aspect of the
security stack. Instead of using multiple tools for backup, anti-virus,
anti-malware, vulnerability assessments, URL filtering, patch
management, etc., a single, integrated cyber protection solution would
greatly improve their ability to efficiently provide better services to
their clients. This is why we see rapid adoption of Acronis Cyber
Protect by service providers from all over the world."
One
of Acronis' latest offerings is Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, which
provides a unique integration of backup with full-stack next-generation
security and management tools. A single integrated solution simplifies
day-to-day operations for service providers, increases the productivity
of their technicians, and delivers much higher security and reliability
for end customers, avoiding downtime and data loss that could lead to
customer churn.
'Keeping
costs down' is a key concern for MSPs, according to the Omdia survey:
92% of respondents say acquiring the skills and expertise to deliver
security services is a major business challenge because many available
services are expensive and scarce.
"COVID-19
continues to have a relentless grip on the world, resulting in the most
challenging business environment we've seen since last decade's Great
Financial Crisis and the Great Depression of the 1930s," comments Roy
Illsley, Distinguished Analyst at Omdia, and one of the lead authors of
the report. "In these environments where organizations are facing a new
threat that they are ill-prepared for, cybercriminals can only thrive.
To combat this, MSPs and their clients must have the ability to
implement the most appropriate solutions to deal with these increasingly
sophisticated attacks."
"The
challenge for MSPs is to understand the risk of continuing to use
legacy solutions from multiple vendors to provide protection for their
customers. The need for agile yet integrated solutions designed
specifically for the MSP market is very high in these most challenging
times."
Acronis
Cyber Protect Cloud, like all of Acronis' solutions, is developed based
on the Five Vectors of Cyber Protection- safety, accessibility,
privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS). Cyber protection, which IDC
calls a new IT discipline, addresses the need to combine data
protection and cybersecurity, which have historically been treated as
separate practices, to mitigate risk and meet the emerging challenges
created by modern data use.
Michael
Frisby, Managing Director of Vuzion in the U.K., notes, "Vuzion is
committed to helping managed service providers build a sustainable and
profitable business by offering them the best possible solutions. With
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, we have the opportunity to do just that.
This integrated solution has a lot of potential and we are excited to
learn more about how it can further benefit our customers."
The
Omdia survey also shares other useful MSP-related insights. For
example, it lists the top three areas MSPs feel are important with
regards to backup and recovery: being able to automate the backup
process, providing protection against ransomware, and backing up the
most popular SaaS applications, such as Microsoft 365.
Learn more about the survey
Omdia's
Illsey will review the full findings of the survey during Acronis' June
11 webinar, examining how MSPs described their ability to protect their
clients today and how they are planning to address those needs in the
future. Registration for the webinar is now open here.
Acronis is also making the full results of the survey available here.