As much as any industry, the IT Channel has gone through some crazy times recently. How businesses operate has been turned on its head, which has created a host of new IT challenges. Managed service providers (MSPs) have stepped up to enable that transition with their technical expertise.
The challenge for MSPs is navigating the immediate and long-term effects to their own businesses. Focusing on the priorities of clients is critical, but MSPs also cannot neglect their own companies. They need actionable insights that can help them better navigate the challenges and opportunities—in terms of sales, technology, business operations, etc.— that have emerged.
Historically, attending a conference has helped fill that knowledge gap. This year, virtual events like the Acronis Global Cyber Summit have become vital in providing those insights.
Happening this October as a ffree virtual event, the Acronis Global Cyber Summit is the world's largest gathering of thought leaders and industry experts focused on cyber protection – including tech leaders, cybersecurity experts, and IT channel veterans who will share practical, actionable insights.
Focus on practical knowledge from experts
“These challenging times underscore the need for comprehensive cyber protection, which is why providing a virtual venue where thought leaders can share their expertise is more important than ever,” said Acronis Founder and CEO Serguei “SB” Beloussov. “Our goal for this year’s Summit is to empower all of our partners and customers – both in terms of their protection needs and business development. The experts joining us will deliver the actionable insights attendees can immediately put into practice to ensure their organization’s success.”
Highlighting that focus will be a keynote from industry veteran and cybersecurity visionary René Bonvanie. With more than 35-years’ experience in the cybersecurity and software industry – including successes at Palo Alto Networks, Business Objects, Veritas, and Oracle – he’ll examine the disruptive opportunities created by the emerging field of cyber protection.
Bonvanie successfully marketed and sold disruptive technologies throughout his career. He created the Palo Alto Networks story from scratch, which catapulted it past larger, well-established competitors and made it the largest enterprise security company.
MSP track at Acronis Global Cyber Summit 2020
For MSPs looking to build and extend their services, reduce churn, and deliver superior cyber protection to their clients, the MSP track at the Summit includes several workshops that will be hands-on – even if they are virtual.
Sessions will feature channel experts such as Amy Babinchak, Microsoft MVP and owner of Harbor Computer Services, Third Tier, and SellMyMSP, Erick Simpson, co-founder of one of the first “Pure Play” MSPs in the industry and Creator of the MSP Mastered™ Methodology for Managed Services business performance improvement, Karl Palachuk, who built and sold two managed service businesses and is the founder and president of the Sacramento SMB IT Professionals Group.
"For our service provider track, we are focusing on MSP-to-MSP sharing of best practices, real-world experiences, pitfalls to avoid, and the must-haves in building a security-first services organization,” Acronis Chief Channel Evangelist Amy Luby explained. “We’ll learn from some of the best in the business: proven MSP entrepreneurs who have been extremely successful will share their tips, tricks, and secrets to building a modern, agile, and profitable security services organization."
Scheduled workshops include:
Don’t Become Obsolete! Learn How to Build a Security-First Managed Service Business
Amy Babinchak leads this 90-minute workshop on how MSPs can get proactive with cybersecurity services to build a modern practice from the ground up. In this interactive workshop, you’ll roll up your sleeves to work on your business. She will show the 10 most important areas that you need to address to ensure you are building a comprehensive security service offering, five key performance indicators for running a profitable services desk, and the top five mistakes service providers make when establishing their security offerings.
How Modern MSPs Maximize Profits: Let’s Do Something Right Together
Join Rayanne Buchianico, owner of ABC Solutions, LLC, as she walks you through the service provider P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statements – helping you understand what they mean, how to use them, and how to spot the early warning signs that you must respond to in order to keep your net profits high. Attendees are asked to bring their financial questions and be ready to solve your real problems. She’ll walk through three major pillars: How to increase your profits; How to measure your success going forward; How to spot the five most common financial red flags to avoid crisis down the road.
Stop Selling New Stuff the Old Way: Today’s Threat Landscape is Scary, So How Do Modern MSPs Win
Everything about the threat landscape has changed during the past five years – except, perhaps, the way you design and sell your security services. Karl W. Palachuk will deliver a deep dive on refreshing your entire approach to creating and selling security services, so you can redesign the way you sell the security services that are needed in the modern environment. This workshop features exclusive, never-before-seen content for Acronis partners. Attendees will leave with checklists outlining the 10 most critical components of a modern sales and marketing approach to creating and selling security services, along with practical advice from Karl.
Heading to the Cloud: Optimizing Business Processes and Systems to Deliver Optimized Cloud-based Services for Remote Work Environments
Increasingly, MSPs are moving more workloads and infrastructure to the cloud, and during the pandemic, a large number of endpoints became remote work environments. The transition has been bumpy for many MSPs and their clients. Erick Simpson, an MSP thought leader, shares the shortcuts to success and the pitfalls to avoid during this transition, as well as how to plan for post-pandemic IT environments.
Are You Attracting the Right Clients?
Larry Walsh of The 2112 Group will examine different pricing models you can use for your MSP business, as well as how those different pricing models affect the clients you attract. By the end, you’ll know how to assess your own profitability model and have a new way of looking at your client intake.
With so much practical advice and knowledge being shared to help MSPs, the Acronis Global Cyber Summit 2020 is the must-attend IT Channel event of the year. While this year’s Summit is being offered as a free virtual event, registration is still required. To reserve your spot and to get all of the latest updates on the agenda, visit https://acronis.events/summit2020/.
Guest blog courtesy of Acronis. Read more guest blogs from Acronis here.
