MSP Cybersecurity a Top Focus at IT Nation London

CONNECTWISE IT NATION LONDON — MSP cybersecurity was top of the agenda for ConnectWise at IT Nation London Tuesday. Channel Futures was there.

The software firm detailed a host of challenges facing MSPs and their customers. These included the explosive growth of devices and access points, cloud use on the rise, and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). It also noted an ongoing struggle to identify where the computing edge starts or stops.

This makes it difficult for MSPs to manage “an ever-changing, confusing, and elaborate world” for customers, it said.

Cybersecurity is the fastest growing part of ConnectWise’s business, said Jay Ryerse, VP of global security sales. It is the company’s job to help MSPs to provide cyber solutions to their customers, despite a lack of resources and talent.

ConnectWise’s Jay Ryerse

“The challenge that we’re all still seeing is people,” Ryerse told Channel Futures at the event. “The partner community does not have the resources collectively to hire and retain talent on cybersecurity. And if they do, then the enterprise seems to scoop them up and take them away. So ConnectWise has built a tremendous amount of resources – SOC, analysts, incident response, people, threat intelligence teams, product development – to help take that pressure off of our partners.

“Our EDR and MDR are backed by enterprise companies like Bitdefender and SentinelOne, but backed by our SOC. Our SOC is actually doing the work for the partner. And not just sending them alerts. We will actually take action to defend clients if we see a potential attack occurring. And it’s very unusual in our space that we’re willing to take that step on behalf of our partners.”

Ryerse also pointed to having zero-trust solutions such as SASE in its portfolio. This is “designed to help us help the partner secure every user, on every device, from anywhere in the world, any time of day, connected to any data source.”

Marketing And Messaging as Important as Technology

However, Ryerse said it’s not all about the technology. One of the biggest challenges that MSPs face is a lack of skills around sales enablement and marketing.

“We’ve got 70 people around the world, and all they do is work with partners to help them build their go-to-market strategy. There are 14 full time marketers. All they do is marketing for our partners, help them get their strategy right. Then we’ve got partner development managers who help teach their sales teams how to have the right conversation [with customers].

Ryerse cited 2022 ConnectWise research into SMEs. In the U.K., a staggering 87% said they would change service providers to get the right cybersecurity.

“We’re helping partners understand that it’s not about the technology. The survey said that [customers are] looking for confidence and the ability of service providers to minimize damage and respond quickly. The ability to minimize damage is more important than the tools they use to do it. So this week, we’re spending a lot of time reinforcing that message.”