Cybersecurity the latest battleground for MSPs

SolarWinds MSP says relationships with customers will suffer if channel doesn’t get security offerings right. Cybersecurity has become the latest battleground where business is won and lost, according to SolarWinds MSP. Speaking at the software company’s Empower MSP customer event in Amsterdam, general manager John Pagliuca, predicted a much greater level of churn among MSPs as the impact of a potential security breach creates friction with customers. “SMBs are turning over managed service providers (MSPs) at a faster pace than ever before. In fact, the number one reason MSP loses a client is through a security breach. When an event happens, if the MSP isn’t providing a fully-layered security offering, they will be out the door,” he said. “An MSP might agree to just offer basic break-fix services [for a customer] but if they have an event, then they assume it’s the MSP’s fault,” added Tim Brown, vice president, security architecture at SolarWinds MSP. “[They think] ‘oh the MSP mustn’t be any good, I’m moving on. Why didn’t you protect me?’ As soon as something occurs, they lose trust in that provider and they switch. Another scenario, Brown told Microscope, is that “if an MSP isn’t talking to their client about security, someone else will come in and take that business…If they’re not proactively talking to their clients about it, they’re going to get superseded by somebody that is.”