Customers demand more from their IT resellers and service providers, especially with the increasingly complex cyber threats. To become a successful managed service provider (MSP), you need to embrace technologies and search for new ways to add value to your clients, while generating new and ongoing revenue.

This could be adding a new service to your portfolio or by simply adopting a new tool to manage your clients’ IT infrastructure.

Here are a few steps and solutions that can help you get started.

Step 1 – Starting with Email Security

Did you know between 75% and 90% of targeted cyber-attacks start with an email? From the Volumetric Spam and Malware in the 2000s to the recent Spear Phishing, it gets more complex every year.

Most of you would be selling Office365, so are you aware that traditional email security gateways can no longer protect users and data?

Many threats, such as spear-phishing attacks or emails directed at users via their personal email, bypass gateways.

Here is what MSPs can recommend to your clients:

• – Barracuda Essentials,
• – An all-In-One Cloud-Based Email Security,
• – Backup,
• – Archiving and,
• – eDiscovery for Office 365.

Use this free Email Threat Scanner to help you start the conversion with your clients.

This checks your exposure to new threats and scans all the emails already in your mail system.

If you want to go one step further, check out the complete suite of the Barracuda Next-Generation Email Protection Services.

It extends traditional email security with a multi-faceted approach that protects all aspects of your clients’ email infrastructure.

Remember, email is a huge source of risk!

Start the conversation early to be protected against email-borne threats to your clients’ staff, brand and business.

Step 2 – Adding Managed Security Services to your practice

Being a modern-day MSP comes with great responsibility. You are the go-to-expert for your clients.

Often small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) do not realise how vulnerable they are, due to their lack of time or skills to address issues.

They expect you to give recommendations and take proactive measures to protect their business.

How do you take a proactive approach?

Innovative MSPs recognise the importance of expanding their focus beyond availability, stability and performance to include security services that protect data, devices and people.

If you are brand new to MSP, there is an entry-level solution from Avast Business called.

This tool will let you deploy endpoint protection remotely or onsite, helping you step up your services and transition into an MSP.

Avast Business also offers a comprehensive remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform.

This platform enables you to manage security solutions across all customer endpoints, servers, network, web and email from a centralised portal.

By adding managed security services, you can provide your customers with complete peace of mind allowing you to grow your business.

MSPs can position themselves as your customers’ trusted security advisor, making you difficult to replace.

Want to hear what a channel partner has to say about this platform?

Listen to the interview HERE with Stephen Mullens from SNC Solutions to hear his experience on providing managed security services through Avast Managed Workplace.

Step 3 – Back up and Disaster Recovery for MSP’s

Another essential service that can help MSPs grow incremental revenues and improve customer retention is Backup-as-a-Service.

Acronis offers a backup service model, especially for service providers, providing you with the tools and options to protect any device in any location by backing up to any storage and recovering to any platform.

Resellers can choose from a range of storage capacity. As a start, you can opt for a 2TB plan, slice and dice it, white-label your backup plans and package it to suit your end clients.

The great thing about Acronis SP Cloud is that there are no entry costs. It has a pay-per-use business model and flexible deployment options.

This can quickly get you into new accounts, creates new incremental revenues and grows your business fast.

Other than backup, having a Disaster Recovery (DR) strategy in place is crucial to ensure business continuity.

Are you asking your clients if they have a documented business continuity and DR plan? Are they testing their DR solution regularly?

If your answer is not 100% to both questions, then you need to start asking these questions.

Acronis offers a disaster recovery solution, which is built upon Acronis Backup Cloud, that lets you protect your customers’ critical workloads by instantly recovering their critical IT systems, applications and data utilising the Acronis cloud infrastructure.

DR is a must have and will help you get new business from existing accounts.

Step 4 – Wrapping everything up under One Single Contract

Finally, the most valuable tool you will need is the ability to bill all your products and services under one payment.

How does that benefit you?

By wrapping all your products and professional services into a contract, it helps build protection around your client base from the competition.

This also enables MSPs to sell more and earn more margins.

Synnex resellers can now do that through Managed Services Finance.

Managed Services Finance provides the missing link that will allow you, as the reseller, to supply your customers with a single monthly payment covering infrastructure, software, support and professional service’s needs.

Summary

So far, we have identified four steps and a range of Cloud solutions that can help you become a successful MSP.

We hope that this will give you some guidance on how to build and grow your MSP business.

If you have any questions, please contact the Synnex Cloud team at team@synnexcloud.com.au or visit the Synnex Cloud Marketplace.