Becoming an MSSP – Robert Johnston – Partner Led Growth – Episode #013

Why are MSPs leaving money on the table and not fully satisfying their customers? Robert Johnston, CEO of Adlumin and a cybersecurity industry leader, shares his thoughts on the future of the cybersecurity space and how MSPs can make the most of the opportunities available. You’ll hear about the three customer types that vendors need to build for, how MSPs can upsell their existing clients, and what profitable industries MSPs are overlooking.

Takeaways:

  • For MSPs looking to become MSSPs, there are two main problems, the time gap and the skill gap. To overcome these gaps, MSPs need feature-rich service augmentation from a third-party service.
  • Vendors working in the channel need to build an ecosystem for their products to harmoniously service three distinct customers, the end customer, the channel partner, and tech-enabled services.
  • The challenge with servicing these three customers is creating a single user interface that can work for all of them without one customer getting in the way of the others.
  • MSPs have a great opportunity to provide their customers with the proactive component of their security, the security configuration. MSPs are perfectly positioned to deliver these proactive security measures to their clients for a fee.
  • If MSPs want to service regulated industries, they must solve for the four forces felt by these industries: 1) Increasing Regulatory and Compliance Standards; 2) Decreasing Capacity; 3) Increasing Threats; 4) Need for Equitable Access to Data & Reporting.
  • Where MSPs sometimes fall short is in their ability to provide Managed Detection and Response (MDR) security services to their clients. In these cases, they generally need service augmentation.
  • When taking a client to the next level by adding security services, MSPs need to show their clients the realistic problems they are facing. It’s also an easier upsell when you are offering defined category services that you weren’t selling before.

Quote of the Show:

  • “In security, I think there are no shortage of realistic problems” – Robert Johnston

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