More than half of surveyed MSPs see a significant business opportunity in offering IoT managed services today.
Managed service providers see emerging technology as a significant source of business opportunity over the next couple of years. More than one-half of respondents to a recent CompTIA survey already offer IoT managed services.
The majority of MSPs have opted to take on IoT managed services as part of their portfolio, despite the fact that, according to Omdia data, enterprise adoption of IoT still hovers around 29%. But MSPs see significant business advantage in offering IoT managed services, according to the CompTIA report, “Trends in Managed Services.” Of 400 MSPs, 53% of respondents provide IoT managed services.
At the same time, MSPs are largely focused on traditional areas of IT: help desk (63%) networking (59%) and cybersecurity (55%).
Additionally, 52% say that skills in cybersecurity will be the No. 1 action to help ensure solid market performance over the next two years.
So while MSPs still place their focus on traditional services, market data indicates that their bet on IoT managed services makes sense.
The global managed IoT services market is expected to grow from approximately $21.9 billion in 2016 to $79.6 billion by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.5% during that period (2016-2021), according to MarketsandMarkets.
CompTIA’s Carolyn April
According to the CompTIA study, 55% of respondents say that IoT presents significant revenue opportunities today, while 37% say that business opportunities are still one to two years away. But respondents also cite several challenges associated with running a managed IoT practice — keeping IoT hardware updated (54%), hiring people with the right skills (51%), staying on top of security concerns (46%) and the learning curve with IoT technology (46%).
Ultimately, MSPs may experience the greatest success with a familiar combination — a hybrid set of offerings.
“We see real excitement over new areas that have the potential to help MSPs tap new recurring revenue streams, attract new business and expand engagements with current customers,” said Carolyn April, senior director, industry analysis at CompTIA. “The successful MSP is likely to feature a combination of bedrock basic services and new, premium offerings.”
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Unlock the power of scale for your IoT solutions.
Avnet’s IoT Partner Program creates a unique channel to enable partners – systems integrators, VARs, OEMs and ISVs – to address both hardware and software needs, deliver unmatched global reach and maximize revenue potential.
A combination of SD-WAN and SIEM power secure and agile networks that are fit to handle today’s digital transformations.
Highly distributed enterprises with many branch locations are rethinking their approach to network management and security. Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) is a crucial technology that offers an affordable network infrastructure with greater network connectivity options combined with capabilities to protect branch devices and data. SD-WAN has been further extended to the concept of SD-Branch consisting of an SD-WAN architecture with a single multi-function edge device that replaces the need for separate routers, firewalls, cellular modems and access points. When fully rounded out with multi-layer security controls, cellular data and a cloud orchestrator, these enterprises are able to quickly deploy, secure and manage their networks with unprecedented visibility.
However, until recently, these SD-Branch solutions still lacked the ability to deliver the more immediate threat detection and effective response capabilities of cybersecurity’s proven workhorse: security information and event management (SIEM). Today’s cyber criminals seek to exploit any weakness in people, processes and technology, making advanced threat protection even more vital. Long found in the IT arsenal of larger enterprises, SIEM capabilities are rapidly being adopted within the SD-WAN edge to enhance visibility and to layer on additional cybersecurity protection. The need for SIEM capabilities at the branch level has increased greatly as more and more network traffic goes through the internet instead of being tunneled back to a corporate data center. As a result, the branch network is more likely to be vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Assessing the security posture of an organization is a key component of a SIEM solution. A SIEM system delivers comprehensive log analytics with audit-ready compliance capabilities. It identifies security threats, malware, unusual behavior and suspicious network traffic, and alerts you when you’re under attack. When coupled with a 24/7 security operations center (SOC), a SIEM system reduces complexity by combining connectivity, threat detection and compliance management into a single suite of managed network services. The synthesis of edge networking with SIEM capabilities enables better and faster security decision making.
Highly distributed organizations are looking to enhance visibility and agility while streamlining security operations and optimizing resources. In particular, network service providers are driving the value of coupling SD-WAN and SIEM through the support of managed security service providers (MSSPs). Key capabilities cited as the result of this cybersecurity convergence are:
Given the multifaceted nature of 5G and security, it’s critical for organizations to understand and prepare for the technology’s impact.
5G technologies and networks are bringing exciting new possibilities for the enterprise. Many organizations are taking a proactive stance by anticipating the security requirements that will come with the new technology. Given the multifaceted nature of 5G and security, it’s critical for organizations to understand the magnitude of this undertaking.
You can check out a recent blog with some of the results of a recent study we conducted with 451 Group: AT&T Cybersecurity Insights™ Report: Security at the Speed of 5G. But wouldn’t a webinar be more fun? Great news–there is just such a webinar available on demand.
In the webinar we cover:
• How 5G will transform the network with such things as Multi-edge Computing (MEC) and IoT
• Where 5G may present new security challenges and where it offers security benefits with a shared security model
• Which security controls will become most critical in the 5G future
• What security practitioners should focus on to get a head start on 5G
You can access the webinar by clicking here.
Tawnya Lancaster, webinar host, joined AlienVault as a Senior Product Marketing Manager in 2018. Previously, she served as the Director of Global Communications for Skybox Security, where she specialized in cybersecurity thought leadership for the vulnerability and threat management and firewall and security policy management space. She graduated from Oregon State University with a B.A. in English and has received certification in Stanford’s Professional Publishing course, an intensive program for established publishing and communication professionals.
This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.
Having a data protection strategy is important for any organization.
Businesses on average are managing nearly 40% more data than they were a year ago, while the estimated total cost of data loss has increased to more than $1 million per organization.
That’s according to Dell Technologies‘ Global Data Protection Index 2020 Snapshot. The snapshot surveyed 1,000 IT decision makers across 15 countries at public and private organizations with more than 250 employees about the impact these challenges and advanced technologies have on data-protection readiness.
Dell EMC’s Ruya Atac-Barrett
Ruya Atac-Barrett, vice president of data protection marketing at Dell EMC, tells us as organizations begin to understand the value of their data and the importance of protecting it, they will hopefully start to look for more control over their data-protection processes.
“The study reported 81% of respondents said that their organization’s existing data protection solution(s) would not be able to meet all future business challenges,” she said. “That said, organizations will need to look for simple, easy-to-manage solutions from a single vendor that enable greater control with less wasted time. Also important to note, these solutions need to provide the global scale organizations require to protect applications and data wherever they are deployed.”
The more aware and conscious organizations are about the need for data-protection readiness, the more informed they will be selecting a vendor, Atac-Barrett said. Being more in tune with the state of the industry, organizations are primed to meet their organizational concerns.
The majority of respondents indicated a lack of confidence in their solutions to help them recover data following a cyberattack, adhering to compliance regulations, meeting application service levels and preparing for future data protection business requirements, she said.
“This presents a significant opportunity for our channel partners and MSP communities to help customers consolidate and simplify their data-protection environment to improve data protection and recovery service-level agreements, meet compliance objectives, enhance their cyber resiliency capabilities, lower costs and simplify IT so that organizations can spend less time on IT management and more time focusing on innovation,” Atac-Barrett said.
More than half of organizations struggle to find adequate data protection solutions for emerging technologies like 5G and edge infrastructure (67%), and AI and ML platforms (64%), according to the snapshot.
Organizations now are managing 13.53 petabytes (PB) of data. The biggest threat to all of this data seems to be the growing number of disruptive events, from cyberattacks, to data loss and systems downtime. The majority of organizations suffered a disruptive event in the last 12 months, and an additional 68% fear their organization will experience a disruptive event in the next 12 months.
The costs associated with data loss are significantly higher for those organizations using more than one data protection vendor — nearly twice the downtime-related costs and almost five-times higher data loss costs, on average.
“One of the main reasons for the increasing cost of data loss is the increasing amount of data itself,” Atac-Barrett said. “The more data that is lost, the higher the associated costs will be; therefore, organizations must update their data protection strategy, and adopt proven and modern solutions that can automatically discover and protect new workloads (virtual, containers, cloud-native, SaaS) as they are deployed across …
This integration will empower IT pros to get a handle on IT spending, risk levels and more.
SolarWinds is integrating its Discovery and Orion platforms to help reduce IT overspending and risk levels while improving service management processes.
The company says this integration will enable IT professionals to easily consolidate and gain visibility into asset information within SolarWinds Service Desk — an increasingly important capability for maintaining security and efficiency as more company assets are spread out across the country due to increasing remote work.
SolarWinds’ Steve Stover
“The IT assets organizations are required to manage continuously evolve, and SolarWinds understands the communication, security and tracking challenges that today’s IT professionals face,” said Steve Stover, vice president of product strategy at SolarWinds. “From quickly diagnosing and resolving major outages to preventing overspending on technology, IT teams play a vital role in meeting business objectives. This integration will empower IT professionals to get a handle on IT spending, risk levels, and the operational impact of assets to IT services.”
Fully integrated with SolarWinds Service Desk, SolarWinds Discovery provides various methods for things like tracking, monitoring and managing data from technology devices, providing IT with complete and real-time visibility of software and hardware assets as they pertain to incidents, requests, changes and other asset life-cycle processes. The Orion platform is the common technology platform for a number of SolarWinds IT operations and application management products that can automatically generate tickets within SolarWinds Service Desk, allowing IT teams to get in there and resolve network and systems issues more quickly.
In light of coronavirus-related work-from-home mandates coming from companies all around the world, we wanted to know how this integration might help MSPs proactively protect employees by enabling remote work functionality.
“A fully remote workforce creates major operational challenges and security risks for organizations,” Stover told Channel Futures. “Between the influx of logins from different networks and employees’ hardware spread out across the world, there’s a higher chance an outage or security breach will occur. By integrating SolarWinds Discovery and the Orion platform, IT professionals gain more visibility into performance monitoring and asset management. The integration allows IT teams who might not have physical access to their company’s systems to fully track and monitor all devices in their network.”
Stover also mentioned that in this unprecedented time, SolarWinds is dedicated to helping IT pros make the most out of the products that they have to address the unique problems created by the coronavirus; specifically, the company’s suite of ITSM solutions helps companies support remote work by enabling IT teams to have complete visibility into all IT assets in their network spread out across the world, he said.
Find out what a judge had to say about the JEDI award. Plus, there’s a new integration partners can sell.
There’s never a dull moment in the world of cloud, that’s for sure. Get the latest scoop this week, from an update on the ongoing JEDI saga to a new product integration to some interesting quarterly results.
We now know why work on the Department of Defense’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project ground to a halt last month.
Recently unsealed federal court documents show that Judge Patricia E. Campbell agreed with Amazon Web Services that Microsoft’s bid contained a “host of errors.”
The DoD last fall awarded the potentially $10 billion project to Microsoft Azure, prompting AWS to cry foul. AWS contends President Trump, in his ongoing public beef with the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, told officials to “screw” Amazon, according to multiple reports.
AWS further says Microsoft’s technology didn’t actually meet certain requirements and, therefore, should have been disqualified. AWS says the storage platform Microsoft proposed to use for JEDI is “noncompliant” because it does not allow for online and replicated storage, SiliconANGLE reported.
Smith agreed that AWS “likely is correct,” the outlet noted, and that the DoD probably should have dinged Microsoft, a move that would have strengthened AWS’ chances of winning JEDI.
“The court considers it likely that [AWS’] chances of receiving the award would have increased absent defendant’s evaluation error,” she wrote, per FedScoop.
Microsoft has taken issue with the opinion. In a statement distributed to multiple media outlets, a spokesman said: “The decision disagreed with a lone technical finding by the Department of Defense about data storage under the evaluation of one sub-element of one price scenario. We have confidence in our technology, our bid, and the professional staff at the Department of Defense. We believe that we will ultimately be able to move forward with the work. Time matters because those who serve our country urgently need access to this essential modern technology.”
The federal court has yet to rule on the AWS case against Microsoft and the Department of Defense. All parties remain tied up in procedural matters, which take a long time.
Calabrio, which develops software for contact centers, now integrates with Twilio’s programmable cloud contact center platform, Flex.
Calabrio’s Matt Matsui
Pairing the two companies’ expertise combines the capabilities of workforce engagement management and contact center as a service, the vendors said.
“There is a shift in the marketplace as customers desire a connected environment rather than disparate systems or data silos,” said Matt Matsui, chief product officer at Calabrio.
In practical terms, contact centers now may use one out-of-the-box platform for routing communication and workflows, expanding channels, capturing data, conducting quality evaluations, using analytics and more. Other features include forecasting and scheduling agents for interactions, tapping into interaction analytics, and sending important information to agents to elevate the customer experience, according to the companies.
Calabrio’s Ross Daniels
For channel partners, the Calabrio-Twilio integration means the ability to offer more scalable, customizable and data-driven capabilities, Ross Daniels, vice president, global partner organization at Calabrio, told Channel Futures.
“The integration between Calabrio One and Twilio Flex is all about making our combined offering simpler and better, with the human experience in mind,” Daniels said. “Calabrio One and Twilio Flex help modern contact centers to more seamlessly predict and plan resources, map customer interactions and gather impactful analytics that ultimately empower agents and customers alike. Calabrio’s more than 200 reseller partners can offer Calabrio One to customers today for integration with Twilio Flex.”
Oracle saw higher quarterly revenue than analysts and investors expected, thanks to its cloud software and services.
Total revenue rose nearly 2% to $9.8 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $9.75 billion, Reuters reported. Profit fell to $2.57 billion in the third quarter that ended Feb. 29, down from $2.75 billion.
The cloud services and license support unit, however, which makes up more than half of Oracle’s revenue, grew 4% to $6.93 billion.
That proved solid momentum for a vendor that has had some difficulty keeping pace with AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Here’s how solution provider R2 Unified Technologies helped Sage Dental restore its IT infrastructure.
Sage Dental Group had a vision for growth. That wasn’t a reality, however, for the dental service organization, with about 60 locations in Florida and Georgia, until Sage undertook a major IT infrastructure upgrade.
To get the company’s IT infrastructure to where it needed to be, Sage’s new CEO and president, Thomas Marler, who joined the company two years ago, and Daniel Mirsky, vice president of IT, who joined the dental service company shortly thereafter, took on the task of revamping the company’s IT, much of which hadn’t been upgraded in years.
For starters, there was a lack of IT leadership for the company’s 60 dental practices, call center and support center. There was no IT governance, and all IT engineering and service desk engineering tasks were outsourced.
Sage Dental’s Daniel Mirsky
“The company was out of touch with what was going on in the support center and the operational challenges that we were having,” Mirsky told Channel Futures.
Here are some of those challenges: a failing network that resulted in 30-40 hours of downtime per month, slow network response, no redundancy, old Aruba switches and no consistency in the network. Also, the company’s applications, running through remote desktop services (RDS) back in the data center, were crippled.
“We’re a paperless office and our practice management system was not accessible for most of the practices for what seemed like most of the time,” said Mirsky.
A web-based, dental business intelligence application that provided each practice with a 360-degree view of daily business – information such as open treatments, appointment rescheduling, no-shows – wasn’t loading properly.
Mirsky had to work quickly and get results quickly, but that wasn’t possible without an internal IT team. Naturally mistrustful of using outside providers to do critical IT work, he didn’t have a choice.
“It’s my environment and I like to have my own staff doing things,” he said.
Lucky for Sage, Mirsky had a previous relationship with R2, a 12-year-old solution provider, whose key vendor relationships include Cisco, Dell EMC, and VMware. R2’s service delivery projects focus on collaboration, data center, security, enterprise networking, wireless and cloud. R2 also had experience working with health-care organizations and the regulatory and compliance issues that go along with that.
Five years ago, R2 did similar work for Mirsky, when he worked for The Lasik Vision Institute, an organization that faced similar IT challenges and needed the same results.
“We needed an organization that understands our business. R2 knows how to navigate the whole health care organization, what to do and what not to do,” he said. “There are some partners out there that will give you a solution, but they really don’t understand your business or if it’s a good fit. R2 truly understands our business.”
In the course of about one year, R2 undertook and completed multiple projects that started with the IT Infrastructure and included installing a Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, cleaning up cabling, replacing aging switches and access points, and creating redundancy and failover from site to site.
R2’s Jamie Doherty
“Once Dan laid out what needed to get done, his organization was quick to accept it. Then we had to step on the gas and roll this thing out as fast as possible,” Jamie Doherty, president and CTO at R2, shared with Channel Futures.
A fast rollout meant that R2, with about 36 employees, borrowed internal resources from other projects in order to cut over at least one site per week, completing all 60 sites in about three to four months.
R2 scheduled with a single practice and had its engineers go in and do all of the network upgrades over the lunch hour.
”We ripped out the network infrastructure, every endpoint, and put in the Meraki, and a guest Wi-Fi infrastructure, and got it up and running,” said Doherty.
Mirsky almost from the get-go decided to …
Update as-a-service offerings to build strong customer relationships.
Craig Fulton
The start of a new decade is a good time to reflect on how much the software marketplace and the “as-a-service” model have evolved over the past 10 years.
By taking time to reflect, providers will benefit from understanding how to effectively leverage the as-a-service model for their customers and their businesses, yielding success in the process. Below are four crucial points to update your as-a-service model, making it more profitable in the process.
1. Stand out: With the competition growing, technology professionals must stand out to their customers against the vast amount of options currently available. In today’s as-a-service world, customers are in control, leveraging more options with lowered costs for switching providers. As a result, it’s important for providers to build and maintain a strong relationship with their customers, while simultaneously catering to their needs and wants. The customer-provider relationship is constantly being tested, so organizations need to ensure every aspect of the customer experience is positive.
2. Navigate your customer journey: Your customers are busy, so offer them a clear and seamless journey that shows your business is meeting and exceeding expectations at every touchpoint. As the first interaction with your client, marketing provides your company the opportunity to deliver to your customers a targeted message, which ideally increases the opportunity to close a sale and set expectations for the quantity and quality of work you will provide. At this stage, it’s crucial to follow up with sales leads in a timely manner and provide them with a quote and proposal automation tool that works seamlessly with your PSA and automation tool to move forward with a purchase.
By delivering on your initial promises with speed and accuracy, your new client will be ready for the implementation phase. Here, your company should provide consistent, proactive services. PSA and RMM tools working in unison will help to automate redundant tasks, prevent major downtime and solidify your value. When issues or questions arise, your customer’s experience with your business’ support team will determine their overall satisfaction with your company. By using a remote-control solution that works alongside your other business automation tools, your business is better prepared to access, track and manage the issue. The final stage of the customer journey provides your client the opportunity to re-evaluate their services with a monthly checklist. Consistent billing can be achieved by implementing a PSA that is able to calculate your charges and deliver invoices reflecting the quoted price from the sales phase of the customer journey.
3. Benefits of migrating to as-a-service offerings: By entering the as-a-service market, your business will enjoy the fruits of a market able to provide customers with the benefits of an in-house team without investing in pricey infrastructure and resources. Outsourcing services provides customers with access to technology experts, cost efficiency, technological innovation, time and resource efficiency, speed, and security. When your business offers more services, potential and existing clients will appreciate the ability to manage their needs with a one-stop shop.
4. Update your marketing campaign: Even if your business is providing the best tools and services at the most affordable prices, you won’t find success without a good marketing campaign. When implementing a strategic marketing campaign, organizations will expand beyond word-of-mouth referrals and a regional marketplace. In an increasingly globalized world, modern technology has equipped businesses with the tools to reach a broader audience, and potentially gain more customers in the process. By understanding and narrowing in on your target market, implementing relevant digital and traditional marketing campaigns, conducting effective market research, developing buyer personas and creating targeted messages, you will be better prepared to drive sales.
In the tech industry, changes happen overnight, so taking the time to evaluate the past 10 years of the as-a-service model and looking for ways to cater to the changes will yield positive results for your business. By coupling simple solutions with technological innovations, your business shows it can sustain the needs of a customer while embracing the constantly evolving landscape.
As ConnectWise chief customer officer, Craig Fulton oversees the support, consulting and onboarding teams. He credits his 20-plus years in the technology sector, including time spent as a support desk and field technician, for helping him understand what partners want and need from their business management software. He co-created ConnectWise CloudConsole and authored Path to Success, a ConnectWise best-practices guide about how to run a successful technology solutions provider business. A Marine Corps veteran, he holds a number of patents related to chat program and cloud management technology and earned his bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of South Florida. He was named a Channel Partners Top Gun 51 channel executive in 2019. Follow Craig on LinkedIn or @ConnectWise.
The IT managed services business is alive and well, and although global growth is expected to increase to $282 billion over the next three years, MSPs continue to find it a challenging business to grow, optimize, and sustain profitably.
Learn absolutely everything you need to know about sustainable growth for MSPs, by MSPs in this 44-page master eBook series.
Chapter 1: Jumpstart Your Growth – Guidance for early-stage MSPs that are trying to acquire customers and grow revenue as quickly as possible to achieve scale.
Chapter 2: Maximize Your Profitability – Guidance for mid-stage MSPs that have achieved scale and want to increase their margins by optimizing processes and cutting costs.
Chapter 3: Protect Your Revenue – Guidance for more mature MSPs that are profitable and need to protect their revenue by retaining customers and growing wallet share.
