Cybersecurity remains a hot area for managed service providers looking to climb the value chain. And with reported cybercrime incidents lifting 15 percent year on year, or one every seven minutes, businesses are taking notice.
But shifting from managed IT architectures to risk advisory can challenge even the most technologically sophisticated partners.
Michael Skliros, from Melbourne based technology business Systima, told CRN Australia how the firm’s cyber practice has found success. We spoke with him at the Ingram Experience 2023 event, which assembled hundreds of the IT distributors’ partners.
“We are looking at clients' risk. We're looking at how we can de-risk their environments and improve their resiliency. And it's very much geared around an overall cyber roadmap,” Skliros said.
“Where we have traditional IT infrastructure roadmaps, we can actually fuse the two together and we can often incorporate their IT infrastructure with a security lens and tie it all together for them.”
“Our process has probably changed…it's geared more towards baselines and assessments and [making] something tangible and you can compare a start-end,” he said.
Systima also educates customers that security “isn't just a set and forget process or a product or a slider that you can toggle on and off within a tool set.”
Developing cyber “muscle”
Systima has leaned on Ingram Micro to help build its security practice.
“What Ingram Micro really brought to the table through this program was building a way that we could better make known the benefits of what tool stack was out there – how we can translate that information to our customers. And a whole bunch of additional resources via way of training, sales enablement and also support to help get that messaging across, which then in turn yielded quite a bit of uptake.”
The focus is on building a more holistic security practice through a global Ingram Micro initiative called the Microsoft Security Expert Program.
“One of the goals is helping a partner develop the muscle around their cybersecurity offerings,” said Ingram Micro Australia's Mark Voyce, “and being seen as more than just your typical IT provider, but a resource that the customer can confidently go to [which will] provide a complete cybersecurity offering that builds that cybersecurity resilience within their business.”
The program aims to move customers from Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Microsoft 365 Business Standard to more premium and security centric SKUs, such as Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
Partners get technical training, sales and marketing delivery, and a free cybersecurity assessment tool they can use with Microsoft cloud and hybrid environments. Microsoft SMB workshops aim to help partners with their conversations with customers.
“We have partners such as Systima, which were able to come and do that holistically and actually see a fair bit of success from it,” Voyce said.
Revamping cyber practices
Knowing where to start is often the biggest hurdle for partners revamping their cybersecurity practices.
“One of the biggest challenges that we see in IT partners building that cybersecurity framework is really from the initial stages of ‘What does our cybersecurity offering look like for our SMB customer base?’” Voyce said.
In Voyce’s view, partners need help understanding “the framework” – tools, knowledge gaps, and skills needed to deploy a tool.
The program starts with business planning. Partners can take technical training needed for certification and work with a sales and marketing team on a go-to-market strategy.
Ideally, this leads to more secure managed services, deployment projects and sales of licence, such as Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
Voyce talked up the success of the program. “There has been exponential growth from a lot of these partners, specifically around their subscription payments, end user and customer per seat adds, as well as the churn rate has dropped significantly,” Voyce said.
“Appetite is growing”
Getting the C-suite to buy into cybersecurity remains a hurdle for many MSPs. Ingram Micro aims to short circuit objections.
“A pretty big thing at the moment with a lot of SMBs is around what they can afford versus what their risk appetite is,” Voyce noted.
“It all comes down to how it's translated, from understanding what's out there, to the partner that needs to build or understand around what the cybersecurity is for an SMB market, and then what the actual business actually hears.”
Michael Skliros said customers are expecting more mature protection services.
“We've probably have about over 130 or so customers on retainers of various levels and that includes traditional managed services, IT support services and the like,” he said.
“We often play in the protection space, whether it's through a spam filter or a detection tool and the like. But the maturity of those services now is really going to a different level, because it's what the market's actually after. That's what our customers are seeking and or expecting of us.”
“The appetite there is growing and I think through education and conversations that we're having with customers that we're starting to bridge that level of understanding that they actually have, and there are solutions out there in the market which are allowing them to address some of their key concerns and problems.”
Decluttering with Microsoft
MSPs talk about how managing platforms, devices, apps and data from disparate vendors is a headache. So as a Microsoft tech stack partner, Skliros appreciates the single plane of glass experience.
“Customers are starting to understand that the Microsoft stack can really be used as a core platform to standardise your security offering. And the incremental upgrades and the various SKUs that they have allows you to then start to declutter some of your technology offering and piece it all into more of that overall single pane of glass vision,” Skliros said.
“Most IT service providers in various forms always try to seek that single pane of glass from a security lens. This plays a long way into helping achieve that and building some additional services around it to actually manage it.”
Skliros appreciated how consolidation eased his training burden.
“We feel that is going to give our business an advantage by allowing us to really hone in on the skillset and the training across all our employees,” he said.
“So, whether you're a service desk employee or leading into projects or some form of specialist security delivery, the underlying architecture, the platform, is going to be standardised. And that's really allowed us to form part of our big focus on how we're managing our technicians and engineers.”
Skliros is thankful for the program reinvigorating his business's focus. He suggests other partners give it a go.
“The Microsoft Security Expert Program run by Ingram Micro has been a great tool for us. And it's something that I'd strongly encourage many other service providers in the space to look at,” he said.
“I think being able to lead in with security discussions and risk, will definitely go a long way.”
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