New Norm Means New Opportunities for MSPs

By Christopher Homewood

  Filed under: Data Center
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New Norm Means New Opportunities for MSPs

managed service provider

With new digital applications and ever-increasing data and storage needs, millions of businesses are increasingly entrusting their IT to MSPs. In fact, prior to the global coronavirus pandemic, the global managed service provider (MSP) market was going strong at a compound annual growth rate of about 12.5%.

Like most businesses, MSPs have been impacted by the pandemic, it certainly doesn’t appear that companies will be going back to business-as-usual any time soon (if at all), and as an MSP, you can’t either. Fortunately, the “new norm” also means new opportunities and continued market growth for your essential services-as long as you have the right foundation.

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Your Services Are More Essential Than Ever

Whether you’re focused on a specific technology or vertical market, or you provide a broad offering of IT services to a variety of business types, you likely experienced a wider range of requests from your customers as they scrambled to support work-from-home initiatives at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With hundreds of remote employees spread out working from home, businesses suddenly had to deal with outdated home equipment, laptop shortages, hundreds of networks, and a greater need to protect data and maintain business continuity and application integrity. Remote working, furloughs, and shelter-at-home orders due to the pandemic have also driven a global increase in data traffic with e-commerce sales at an all-time high.

While many may have turned to MSP services to achieve sufficient work-from-home functionality, businesses are now grasping the reality that this virus isn’t going away anytime soon, and just “functioning” is no longer enough. Many are therefore looking to reinvent the way they do business and fast-tracking the shift to a 100% digital approach, both internally and externally. With all these initiatives comes an increased demand for bandwidth, connectivity, VPNs/server refreshes, cybersecurity, and cloud-based backup, collaboration, education, and other business continuity tools.

Whilst the benefits of using managed services-streamlined IT processes, disaster recovery, improved network reliability, buying power, access to new technology, etc.-may have once seemed like a luxury for some businesses, more are now turning to MSPs to handle new-norm IT issues and digital transformation. In fact, 67% of companies say they are now more likely to explore MSPs to help ramp up their mobile workforce and remote IT capabilities. Make no mistake that this is an ideal opportunity to grow.

But Are You Up To The Challenge?

Of course, providing managed services to help customers survive and thrive in the new norm doesn’t come without challenges-and MSPs need to remain strategic to remain profitable. If you haven’t already, now is a good time to diversify your customer base to include markets that are experiencing growth during the pandemic (e.g., healthcare, biotech, food retail, and delivery).

Also increasing your range of services to support demand for secure high-bandwidth connectivity and new work-from-home initiatives can better position you for growth in the new-norm economy. Businesses around the world are seeking hosted collaboration and VoIP solutions, virtual desktops, replication and remote access services, equipment upgrades, and enhanced cybersecurity. And as 5G continues to roll out, both the public and private sectors will also be looking to leverage these faster cellular networks to support new and enhanced product offerings that help them thrive in a digital world (think virtual events, remote learning, online gaming, telemedicine, artificial intelligence, augmented reality). As an MSP, you need to be ready to help customers deploy these new technologies.

Whilst the importance of MSPs has never been clearer, it takes the right foundation to achieve continued growth and success during these challenging times. As an MSP, you need the ability to quickly and efficiently expand services without worrying that your network infrastructure can’t perform and scale without risk.

High-bandwidth network availability is more critical than ever, and your infrastructure must deliver maximum performance, reliability, flexibility, and manageability. Through a combination of high-performance network and data center solutions and renowned technical services, logistics, and a global network of technology partners, Siemon supports MSPs like you to deliver worry-free, on-time, and cost-effective infrastructure that allows you shift your focus away from the day-to-day and concentrate on growing your business.

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