MSP success in 2020 depends on flawless execution in these three areas

Netwrix, a vendor of information security and governance software, surveyed its MSP partners in North America to discover which techniques and activities were most successful for bringing value to clients and driving business growth. The online survey was conducted in December 2019.

Netwrix discovered that three strategies are crucial for increasing customer loyalty and gaining a competitive advantage in 2020:

1. Capitalize on changing market trends.
   The survey revealed that security and compliance offerings could become a game-changer for managed service providers. All organizations, from small businesses to large enterprises, now face serious security threats and must comply with complex regulations. MSPs that have added solutions for security and compliance on top of their standard offerings report a variety of business benefits, including being able to increase customer satisfaction (51% of respondents), improve their reputation (44%) and ensure system uptime for customers (37%).
2. Provide vertical-specific solutions.
   The survey found that the top industries targeted by MSPs are professional services like legal or real estate (66%), the financial sector (63%) and healthcare (63%). Organizations from these verticals are highly regulated: They need to comply with both specific industry standards and privacy legislations like the GDPR and the CCPA. MSPs that have bundled industry-specific services with solutions for auditing say they have achieved continuous compliance (87%) and improved security (55%) for their customers.
3. Partner with your vendors.
   Vendors can be a rich source of knowledge about technology, common use cases and successful implementation — information MSPs need in order to better understand customer needs, accelerate the sales process and ultimately provide more value. The surveyed MSPs have seen the most value from training programs and demo sessions provided by vendors (64%) and joint marketing activities. In 2020, 69% of surveyed MSPs anticipate participating in joint customer-facing events (e.g., Lunch and Learn sessions), 44% plan to take part in joint webinars with vendors and 39% will launch co-marketing email campaigns. Also, 67% are taking advantage of testimonials, reviews and customer success stories shared by vendors.

One of the key success factors for a managed service provider is having a close relationship with each client. You need to understand their business needs and offer a solution that solves their critical issues. Close collaboration with vendors is also essential: Joint marketing activities and deep training will increase your product expertise, enabling you to address customer pain points more effectively, sell more into existing clients, expand your client base and maximize customer satisfaction rates.
Ken Tripp, Director of Channel Accounts at Netwrix

We work with many healthcare organizations that need to meet the requirements of HIPAA. To bring value to our clients, we help them with compliance-related tasks. For example, we offer healthcare organizations auditing solutions that help them provide necessary evidence to auditors and demonstrate continuous compliance. As a result, we managed to substantially increase the customer satisfaction rates in 2019 and added additional organizations from regulated industries to our client base.
Aaron Ward, Director of Technology at iVenture