ASCII Summit: MSPs Talk Kaseya Attack, Vendor Sprawl, Cloud Costs
MSPs learned about the most costly way to provide Azure services.
![Joseph Landes Joseph Landes](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltf38b62aed2ac8172/65244c564837af1648faae13/IMG_3723-1.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Stephen Monk (left), CEO of Noverus Innovations, sat down for a Q&A with ASCII Group president Jerry Koutavas and his MSP peers at the MSP Success Summit in Chicago. Monk, who has launched multiple MSPs, answered questions from MSPs who are trying to grow their businesses.
One MSP asked Monk about where he found his marketing people. Did those people know about IT? Monk surprised them when he said that his marketing hires didn’t possess any technical expertise.
He said marketers don’t need to know the inner nuts and bolts of a technology solution to excel.
“A good marketing person can market anything,” Monk said.
Moreover, Monk said Noverus’ biggest marketing initiative was building a web presence. Setting up the website and fine-tuning the SEO went a long way.
Monk said the MSP industry struggles with vendor sprawl. He himself reached a point where he realized that he needed to cut down on his vendors. After analyzing all the overlap, his company said goodbye to more than 20 vendors.
Now he approaches prospective vendor partners with a higher level of scrutiny. He identifies the main pain point the vendor solves and determines if one of his existing vendors already addresses that problem.
Joseph Landes, chef revenue officer of Nerdio, challenged partners to launch a Microsoft Azure practice.
Landes noted that Microsoft’s public cloud business grew 50% in the last quarter. That’s astounding for a $15 billion business.
“Is your MSP growing at 50%? If it is, that’s super,” Landes said. “And if it’s not, I think there’s an opportunity to ride the wave of investment that Microsoft is making and that they’re continuing to make in Azure.”
Landes compared Azure to where Office 365 was five years ago. Many partners preferred to continue managing Exchange servers rather than betting on Office 365.
And we know how Office 365 turned out.
Moreover, Landes said Microsoft is putting its biggest investment into Azure. That means partners can ride Microsoft’s 50% growth wave while relying on Microsoft’s investments.
Landes said MSPs put off starting an Azure practice for a few key reasons.
First, many see it as too expensive and risky. They worry that their customer might consume too much and leave the partner with a shockingly high bill at the end of the month.
Other partners don’t want to deal with the complexity. They enter the Azure portal and see more options than they can imagine. And that triggers a talent crisis, which brings us back to cost.
“I don’t have any people in my company who know how to do anything with Microsoft Azure, so I can go hire someone locally who has this expertise or I can train my existing staff. Either of those choices is going to be an expense to my business, and I don’t want to spend the money doing that, so I’m just going to stay where I am,” Landes said, voicing the concerns that many MSPs feel.
Landes broke down how MSPs and their customers can cut down on unnecessary Azure costs. That includes becoming a CSP reseller and leveraging Azure Reserved Instances.
But most importantly, they need to avoid the “pay-as-you-go” method at all costs, Landes said.
Partners, vendors and ASCII employees attended the event at the Lincolnshire Marriott in the Greater Chicago area.
Attendees networked with each other, visited vendor booths and sat in on several keynotes.
Michael Crean, CEO of MSSP Solutions Granted, addressed the elephant in the room: the Kaseya supply chain ransomware attack.
Crean said about 100 partners have called him this week, asking if they should drop Kaseya. He has told them that customers might be asking similar questions about MSPs. Do you want your customers to do the same to you?
He said the most important thing is that the industry holds itself accountable.
“We all know what’s happened with Kaseya. We all know what happened with SolarWinds. This isn’t about what they did wrong. This isn’t about what you did wrong. We get better together,” he said.
So should they stick with Kaseya or not?
“Am I telling you to stay? No. Am I telling you to give up on them? No.”
Michael Crean, CEO of MSSP Solutions Granted, addressed the elephant in the room: the Kaseya supply chain ransomware attack.
Crean said about 100 partners have called him this week, asking if they should drop Kaseya. He has told them that customers might be asking similar questions about MSPs. Do you want your customers to do the same to you?
He said the most important thing is that the industry holds itself accountable.
“We all know what’s happened with Kaseya. We all know what happened with SolarWinds. This isn’t about what they did wrong. This isn’t about what you did wrong. We get better together,” he said.
So should they stick with Kaseya or not?
“Am I telling you to stay? No. Am I telling you to give up on them? No.”
ASCII SUCCESS SUMMIT — MSPs need to hold their customers’ feet to the fire to implement cybersecurity in the age of hybrid work.
That’s according to ASCII Group president Jerry Koutavas, who shared data about hybrid work on Wednesday at the ASCII SMB IT Success Summit in Chicago. A live poll of the MSP and vendor attendees showed that 44% of companies will combine remote and in-office work going forward, while 20% will go fully remote and 34% will fully return to the office.
ASCII Group’s Jerry Koutavas
The data seem to indicate that people see the benefits of remote work. Even CEOs in Florida, one of the most open-for-work states, are decreasing their office space investment by 40% and increasing their technology investment by 80%, according to a study.
But that trend comes with challenges. Koutavas said one in four (25%) employees still don’t know how to properly use the collaboration applications that make remote work possible. Thus, MSPs can provide value by training employees to use these applications and help businesses monitor productivity.
In addition, long-term hybrid work expands the attack surface and makes cybersecurity more important than ever. If customers aren’t willing to take the threats seriously and make necessary investments, MSPs need them to sign a waiver. No one can afford to ignore the risk, Koutavas said.
“The big thing now is to make sure you’re pushing your clients to the nth degree. I know they don’t like two-factor [authentication]. I know they don’t like extra security precautions, but this is not a game anymore,” Koutavas said.
Attendees also learned about how to build a cloud practice and how to scale up their business.
Channel Futures attended this live, in-person event. Scroll through our slideshow above to see what other speakers had to say about MSPs, hybrid work and cybersecurity.
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