Microsoft Office 365 Business Booming for MSPs

A large percentage of MSPs grew their Microsoft Office 365 business last year while helping clients transition to remote work.

That’s according to a survey of 370 MSPs by Altaro Software. It gauged the effect of COVID-19 and the subsequent shifts of organizations’ employees to working from home.

Eighty-seven percent saw more Microsoft Office 365 business last year. Moreover, 55% saw an increase in implementation business for Microsoft Office 365.

Andy Syrewicze is technical evangelist at Altaro.

Altaro’s Andy Syrewicze

“Many MSPs have historically seen office products as a gap filler for customers and simply something that generated residual revenue while helping with end-customer stickiness,” he said. “However, in recent years, the value of the M365 platform as a whole and the innovations the platform brings to end customers in terms of collaboration and digital transformation is clearly now driving new business needs that require deep expertise and services from trusted MSPs.”

Two-thirds of MSPs felt Microsoft 365 helped them and their clients transition smoothly from office-based working to remote working. In addition, they largely agreed this transition gave them more business opportunities, matching the findings of Altaro’s survey in 2020.

Embracing Microsoft 365

“When the pandemic hit, many MSP end-customers simply did the bare minimum to enable effective work-from-home,” Syrewicze said. “Once it was determined that this was going to be the new normal, many end-customers embraced the M365 platform in full and started adopting new features that were previously unused. This process is still in progress and will continue to be ongoing as organizations determine what the new normal is for their organizations after lockdowns end. Realistically, most organizations will adopt a hybrid work posture. And MSP leaders will be needed to help end-customers navigate through that transition.”

Over the course of the last year, MSPs have been implementing more Microsoft 365 solutions than ever before. Clients are flocking to collaboration tools like Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint (Cloud).

MSPs also saw increased revenue opportunities from the availability of third-party tools to manage their clients’ Microsoft 365 deployments. And it’s clear businesses are seeing the value in them.

Eighty-five percent of MSPs use secondary tools to enhance clients’ 365 setup. Also, 84% of MSPs who chose to go with third-party email security solutions also set up third-party backup solutions for their clients. That showed the opportunities for cross-selling these two services is very high.

“It appears that the world has figured out that ‘Hey, we can do this,’ in the face of COVID-19,” Syrewicze said. “MSPs that have embraced M365 and other modern platforms will continue to thrive as the demand shows no signs of abating anytime soon. If there is any problem for MSPs coming into 2021, it’s that they may have more work to do than they can handle, which isn’t a horrible problem to have given the circumstances.”