Security Propels Profitability
Security is top of mind for business owners as high profile data breaches and ransomware attacks have increasingly become nightly news, thrusting the MSP cybersecurity conversation into the forefront with clients and prospects alike. It’s no big surprise then that a majority of MSPs cite cybersecurity sales as a primary growth driver for the year 2021 and beyond.
Granted, most MSPs have been selling security services into their existing customer base for several years generating MRR by doing so. The question then becomes, if security services are commonplace amongst MSPs, where should we expect the incremental growth to actually come from? The answer may not be as difficult as you think.
Baselines and Buckets
If there’s a silver lining in the increasingly hostile cybersecurity landscape, it’s that software vendors have been hard at work to keep pace with cybercriminals, thereby spawning new technologies and services for MSPs to sell downstream. This kind of security modularity didn’t really exist in year’s past but it does now, and can be utilized by MSPs to create predefined packages for existing and prospective customers to choose from.
Start by establishing a baseline of security services for all customers, both existing and new. This package is comprised of the current security services adding any critical services needed to achieve industry best practices. This typically includes a NextGen firewall, advanced endpoint security, email security and BUDR. By creating this minimum standard, the first security bucket has already been created.
The idea is that new customers must be willing to pay for at least a minimum package to be on-boarded and so too must existing customers adopt the new minimum security package at renewal to maintain eligibility as a client.
Phish or Cut Bait
Understood that getting a legacy base to agree to a new security contract can cause a little heartburn, but it is necessary. After all, the role of an MSP’s is to act as an expert in determining the level of care required for a customer’s safety and cybersecurity. Some older clients may churn while others may grudgingly accept the new terms and that’s ok. The larger opportunity for sustainable growth lies within net-new customers and expanded security services. Given the current climate, the upsell has never been more viable.
Shoot for Single Sourcing
Security vendors are busy expanding their portfolio of services while striving to provide and attract MSPs through single sourcing. This paradigm shift away from disparate technology tool sets, and the sprawl it created, into a more manageable limited tool set has proved beneficial for service providers. This approach fosters efficiencies and automations that in the end, drives revenue growth. Simply look to a core value proposition of an RMM provider to validate MSP’s demand for technology and tools consolidation.
MSPs can retain more margin by driving down their COGS realized by leveraging buying power across fewer vendor partners. Not to mention the economies of billing, support, administration and UI/UX congruencies.
Look for endpoint and email platforms that are feature rich and able to sustain enough depth and breadth of services required to map to several different packages or bundles. For example, choose and endpoint solution that offers additional modules like DNS filtering, disk encryption and web access control and then throttle those services back to manufacture better security bundles that costs more. Similarly, look for email security that provides add-ons like phishing protection, attachment protection, archiving and encryption and throttle those services back in the same way.
Go forth and Conquer
Today’s sophisticated and persistent threat landscape is a double edged sword for MSPs. On one hand, it’s more difficult to keep clients safe and even small businesses are at risk. On the other, there’s opportunity for revenue and practice growth like never before. We know that SMBs are spending up to 40% of their discretionary budget on cybersecurity. However, MSPs must put themselves in a position to capture that demand with a portfolio of dynamic, modular security services.
Indeed, the journey from basic security services for small businesses all the way to enterprise with an MSSP partnership isn’t that big of a leap by practicing foundational security and building out a modular, services based security practice.
Guest blog courtesy of VIPRE Security. Read more guest blogs from VIPRE Security here.
