Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) worldwide are relying on managed service providers (MSPs) for IT support now more than ever. The pandemic drove companies to move to remote work environments and accelerated digital transformations. This caused many MSPs to see a rise in demand for IT services, bringing them new opportunities to support their clients through these transitions.
In the 2021 Kaseya MSP Benchmark Survey, we asked MSPs which areas of IT services they believed would present opportunities for growth post-pandemic. Based on the responses received from around 1,000 MSP owners and technicians, cybersecurity, remote workforce setup and cloud migration emerged as the biggest opportunities.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity has always been a major concern for businesses of all sizes. In 2020, the average cost of a data breach rose to $3.86 million. As per the IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2020, 52% of the many breaches that took place in 2020 were due to malicious intent while 19% involved compromised credentials, with compromised credentials being the most expensive initial cause of malicious breaches.
Small and large businesses alike understand the importance of cybersecurity, and in the past year, we’ve also seen a huge increase in the number of cyberattacks. As a result, a significantly higher percentage of MSPs have their clients turning to them for cybersecurity plans and best practices.
Also, more than half of MSPs surveyed said their clients use one to three security solutions, and 37% reported that their clients use four to five security solutions.
With this increase in demand for cybersecurity, many MSPs see a huge opportunity, which they must seize. MSPs can provide multi-layered security services to better protect their clients’ systems and data.
More than 90% of MSPs in our survey already provide antivirus and antimalware protection for their clients. About 80% of MSPs deliver email security services, such as phishing protection and anti-spam. Less than 60% offer security awareness training and Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions. Less than half offer dark web monitoring, in spite of the fact that stolen credentials are widely available in the dark web. So, there are opportunities for many MSPs to expand the security services offerings to tap into this demand.
There’s also a big opportunity for MSPs to offer managed Security Operations Center (SOC) services to their clients.
Remote Workforce Setup
At the onset of the pandemic, many organizations scrambled to set up stable remote work environments. Post-pandemic, as companies recover from the economic downturn, many of them will allow their employees to work remotely indefinitely. This creates more demand for remote IT management services since SMBs have their employees scattered across home offices. With remote workers using computers and mobile devices that are off the corporate network, the services MSPs provide will be critical to managing remote workers in the new normal.
About 58% of MSPs globally expect that managing remote workers will be a top service need of their clients in 2021.
Cloud Migration
The accelerated shift to the cloud because of the pandemic has led many MSPs to believe that offering cloud migration and management can be a good growth opportunity for their business. About 19% of the MSPs globally expect cloud migration services to help them increase revenue as they help their clients continue to digitally transform their businesses.
Of the MSPs surveyed, 54% have also seen a rise in revenue for cloud services provided in 2020, which indicates that cloud management services are a necessity for most MSP clients as they go through tough digital transitions.
As businesses adapt to the new normal, there are opportunities for MSPs to grow their businesses in a competitive market.
Learn more about the various factors driving the MSP market in the 2021 Kaseya MSP Benchmark Survey Results Report.
Guest blog courtesy of Kaseya. Read more guest blogs from Kaseya here.
