Successful MSPs will tell you, the key to building a profitable business is integrating yourself into a customer’s business. It’s not just setting up new employee computers and doing regular updates. It’s about managing their equipment set up, updates, security scans, regular backups, building disaster and recovery plans, and so much more.
The best way to do that is by offering integrated solutions supported by a pay-for-what-you-need structure. This approach enables you to easily scale up your services for each individual client in a way that matches their growth.
The smarter way to build service packages
Cybersecurity services are the most pressing need facing your clients, whether or not they know it.
Today’s businesses live or die by the availability, integrity, privacy and security of their data and services. And as an MSP, you do too. A successful attack against one of your clients not only places additional remediation demands on your team — it puts your other clients at risk in turn.
Start with a robust cyber protection baseline for each client to ensure that security is neatly integrated with data backups and recovery processes. Many MSPs rely on disparate solutions to cover each of these needs, but this is a legacy approach that dramatically increases training and administrative demands on your staff — and can easily lead to security gaps that are hard to identify. A modernized stack will unite these functionalities.
The simple reality is that certain clients may never agree to pay for anything more than your most basic service tier. That’s why meeting at least a minimum cyber protection threshold is so important. When a client lacks robust protection, and they are compromised by a cyberattack, it poses a serious threat to your own business and your other clients in turn. If you can’t convince clients to meet this bare minimum, you may need to consider ending the relationship.
Step up protection with advanced security services
With a strong baseline in place, you can start to build out customized — and often more profitable — packages. This idea isn’t a new one, but how you do so matters.
Different clients have different challenges, and it can be tough to meet everyone’s requirements at an attractive price point (even with two or three tier options). The best delivery platforms for cyber protection services will make it easy to strengthen your offering in an intelligent way, by tailoring it to each clients’ unique needs.
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, for instance, enables the optional delivery of advanced protection capabilities that integrate neatly with its base services. Certain clients will need these expanded functionalities, while others may be able to survive without them for the time being. Consider the value add from services like:
- The Advanced Backup pack, which backs up changes in real time with near-zero RPOs, expands backup support to additional platforms, and enables generation of data protection maps to support compliance reporting.
- The Advanced Email Security pack, which effectively blocks phishing messages, BEC attacks, and other email-borne threats before they can ever reach users’ inboxes.
- The Advanced Data Loss Prevention (DLP) pack, which offers powerful tools to prevent the leakage of sensitive data via peripheral devices or network communications.
This approach offers a low-risk way to expand your services — no need to fully buy into a new software solution. Deliver advanced protection to the clients who require it now, while supporting others as they grow into these more lucrative offerings over time. You’ll help clients stay safe while controlling costs by paying for only the functionalities that they actually need.
This guest blog is courtesy of Acronis. Read more Acronis guest blogs here. Regularly contributed guest blogs are part of ChannelE2E’s sponsorship program.
