MSPs provide essential services to their clients. They keep their operations humming along while continually upgrading technology, reinforcing their defenses against cybercrime, and protecting them from threats, outages and data losses.
But MSPs aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. This is a business, and profitability is key to growth and sustainability for MSPs of all shapes and sizes. In a services-based business model, MSPs must maximize their productivity, minimize their costs and seamlessly scale to accommodate a growing customer base.
At the same time, MSPs are being asked to manage more than ever. Not only is the volume of endpoints growing, thanks to increasing numbers of customers and devices to worry about, but the scope of MSP engagements is also broader.
Remote monitoring and management and managing cloud-based services might be the key value proposition that MSPs started with and that attracted early customers, but MSPs now have a far more complex array of solutions they must offer to meet customer demand and stave off competitors.
From password management to foothold monitoring to supporting a huge surge in remote work, MSPs have their hands full maintaining an up-to-date awareness of the key issues their customers face and the evolving landscape of needs to be met. Each different solution requires a commitment to staff training and the man-hours to get it all done.
Variety Brings Complexity
For the humans performing this work, their job has gotten a lot more complicated and demanding. Customers that previously subscribed to only a handful of offerings now have a full buffet to choose from, and wise SMBs are investing in everything from disaster recovery as a service to dark web monitoring to compliance documentation.
While it’s a testament to the value MSPs offer their clients and the versatility of their staff, it’s also a serious logistical and management challenge. Keeping track of who bought what and making it all run like clockwork requires a ton of visibility and context switching that could strain the most talented multitaskers.
In addition to all that, MSPs must continually invest in training their staff to handle the diverse portfolio of products and solutions they provide. The only realistic way for MSPs to keep all their ducks in a row and maintain the level of service customers demand is via tools and technology.
Read the complete blog post at Channel Futures.
