How Cloud Solutions Can Help MSP Customers Overcome Tough IT Challenges

Successful MSPs have their finger on the pulse of the market and prepare themselves today to solve the challenges of tomorrow. Many SMBs that you may serve are shifting their workloads from on-premises infrastructure to public cloud solutions. According to Datto’s Global State of the MSP report, 99% of MSPs say their clients are using the cloud in some capacity. Moreover, 93% of MSPs expect to have at least half of their client workloads cloud-based within three years.

So, how can you prepare to facilitate this shift for your clients and maximize the benefits of migrating to the cloud? You can start by understanding the common challenges your clients hope the cloud will help overcome. This will allow you to provide the best cloud solutions and services to ensure better business outcomes.

Here are a few examples:

Enabling remote work: Remote work is not a new trend, but its scope and reach have widened exponentially because of the pandemic. The result is more workers than ever before logging onto applications on networks untethered to a physical location. The right public cloud can provide efficient access to the applications, services and data employees need every day. MSPs need to enable their customers’ remote work simply, securely and at scale.

Changing operating procedures: By leveraging the public cloud, MSPs have fresh sources of innovation available that can lead to a differentiating experience for their clients. For example, the heightened analytics available from cloud applications can provide additional insights MSPs can use to be proactive with improved IT offerings that their customers truly need, instead of simply responding to support tickets.

Optimizing costs: Doing more with less becomes possible when scaling into the cloud. Migrating to the cloud can optimize costs by unlocking new levels of productivity, internally or by connecting with customers in new ways via team-based platforms. Creating more robust experiences for your own sales and support people, as well as your customers, is a win. Reducing infrastructure costs drives profitability and paves the way for business transformations.

Security and compliance: Public cloud providers have the cybersecurity muscle to compete with increasingly sophisticated hackers seeking to exploit MSPs and their customers. Microsoft Azure, for example, invests heavily in prevention and pen testing to ensure a highly secure and compliant cloud framework.

To grow their customers’ cloud services at scale, MSPs must be able to take on these challenges while remaining confident in their resilience. When workloads are migrated to Azure, a BCDR solution made specifically for MSPs is a must. Download our eBook The MSP’s Guide to Building a Better Cloud Practice: Tips from MSPs for MSPs to learn more about how to protect client cloud workloads while creating new revenue streams.

 Eric Torres is the director of channel development, Datto.

 This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.