5 Things MSPs Can Do to Mitigate the Economic Impact of COVID-19

Maintain support services. While business is down for many clients right now, the need for support is increasing. Employees are working from home, and, in many cases, they don’t have robust infrastructures in place to support this shift. MSPs should be prepared to provide the help these clients need to ensure business continuity during the shutdown. We’ve heard a lot about “essential” businesses during the pandemic, but there are also countless businesses that are “non-essential” that MSPs are tasked with securing and serving during this time. They are keeping these clients working by helping to enable their remote-work operations.

Make security a priority for existing clients. Part of the impact of COVID-19 is that cybercriminals are taking advantage of the pandemic to step up attacks. MSPs should proactively offer security services and tools that can help shore up their defenses even as their workforce has been scattered outside the firewall. Monitoring tools that leverage artificial intelligence to spot strange behavior on the network can help identify new attacks. Also, refresher training on phishing scams can remind employees that while they may be working from home, they still need to maintain proper security protocols.

Prioritize automation. As part of the impact of COVID-19, many clients will find themselves struggling to keep up with the IT support demands of their newly remote workforce. MSPs can help augment those services by automating as much of that work as possible. Leveraging advanced remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools and security solutions with automation capabilities can help MSPs (who also may be short-handed) reduce their clients’ IT burdens during an already stressful situation.

Invest in redundancy. MSPs often preach the value of redundancy to their clients, but it’s an essential internal practice, as well. MSPs may have to re-arrange responsibilities on the fly. Staff may become ill, or they may have limited availability because of homeschooling or childcare responsibilities. There shouldn’t be any single points of failure within your staff; there should be a backup plan in place when key employees aren’t available. Additionally, your staff should be cross-trained so that they can work with clients they may not have interacted with previously.

Establish new relationships. Just because so many companies are struggling doesn’t mean that there aren’t potential clients looking for help. Many companies have been caught flat-footed when it comes to work-from-home capabilities or cloud-based application access. MSPs can provide consulting, guidance and solutions for companies that lack in-house expertise for remote networking and application access. They may not have a VPN; they may need assistance with credential provisioning or launching virtual servers. They have zero experience with cloud computing.