The increase in cyber attacks and with it, a demand for more cybersecurity, means that hundreds, if not thousands, of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are all trying to build a viable and more profitable practice.
How to stay on top
To lead the pack and add to your bottom line this year, MSPs are needing to enhance its standard cybersecurity risk management offerings. According to an article by TruMethods, these offerings should include a higher level of compliance, which will then demand a higher price.
It was also stated MSPs need to remember that their current ‘specialty packages’ will eventually become apart of every providers standard package. To not fall behind the times each MSP needs to continuously monitor their competition and update their offerings.
From the experts
In the lead up to a panel, which will take place at a security conference at the Channel Partners Conference and Expo in Las Vegas, between 17 and 20 April, moderator Peter DiMarco, vice president of VAR sales at D&H Distributing, and panelist Lyle Epstein, president and CEO of Kortek Solutions, discussed how MSPs and VARs can improve on their profit margins this year in a preamble to their panel titled, ‘Selling Cybersecurity Services: Secrets to Success.’ In this discussion it was observed that Cloud based services continue to be on the up and up with regards to securing higher margins.
The benefits of providing Cloud based services include having no personnel that needs to be dispatched to a site as the Cloud is a virtual platform. This means service providers have a greater client reach and can provide backup and other solutions for anyone from all over the country or even the world. More flexible and self-configurable solutions were seen to be the most profitable services as it suits the client but also means less administration and labor for the Value Added Reseller (VAR).
In the same discussion, DiMarco and Epstein, advised that solutions that affect a business as a whole and layered solutions that will protect a business from both external hackers and internal threats are the most profitable. Products that solve broad scale issues that affect many business, such as email phishing, are easier to sell.
They agreed that MSPs and VARs would be able to move into a higher profit margin if they offered more of a range of hosted cybersecurity services such as backup and recovery, as well as compliance solutions and network assessments, among others.
It is a lot of information to process and implement but, DiMarco assured that vendors and distributors are working to educate MSPs and VARs on their options so that they are able to make the most out of this complicated but lucrative industry, which only proves to be growing bigger and more diverse.
