The 2025 MSP Growth Formula: Unlocking Opportunities in BCDRThe 2025 MSP Growth Formula: Unlocking Opportunities in BCDR

Managed service providers (MSPs) are the backbone of modern business operations, keeping IT environments efficient, secure and resilient. However, as cyberthreats surge and technology evolves, MSPs are under increasing pressure to adapt. To stay competitive in today’s dynamic market, MSPs must continuously innovate and position themselves as indispensable IT partners.

To help MSPs understand the trends, challenges and strategies their peers are prioritizing, Datto recently surveyed over 1,000 MSPs worldwide. The findings, captured in the State of the MSP Industry 2025 Look Ahead: Trends, Growth and Strategies for Success report, reveal a rapidly evolving MSP market driven by rising demand for managed IT services, especially cybersecurity and business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR). In this article, we’ll share key insights and strategies from the survey, giving MSPs a glimpse into what’s shaping their future.

Riding the MSP wave: Growing opportunities and the differentiation challenge

The MSP industry has experienced unprecedented growth in recent times. About 64% of MSPs have reported revenue increases and 67% are expecting continued growth in the next three years — a boom largely fueled by the growing demand for cybersecurity and operational resilience.

Why do businesses turn to MSPs? The numbers speak for themselves.

To stand out in this ultra-competitive landscape, MSPs must focus on specialized, high-value services that differentiate them from the crowd. BCDR presents an incredible opportunity there. While 83% of MSPs offering co-managed IT services have BCDR embedded in their services because of its criticality, less than one in two MSPs (46%) offer it as a standalone offering.

Unlocking profitability: Are MSPs leaving money on the table?

For 91% of MSPs, profitability is a top priority, yet many struggle to maximize margins. One major issue? Undercharging for critical, high-value services like BCDR. Notably, high-earning MSPs ($10 million+ in revenue) take a different approach there. They embrace automation, adopt cloud solutions and bundle BCDR with security services, creating more value and improving margins.

The survey reveals two key strategies that will help MSPs boost their profitability without increasing costs:

The opportunity is there — it’s time to seize it.

The winning combination: How BCDR completes the cybersecurity puzzle

Phishing, ransomware and user-based attacks are surging, putting businesses at greater risk than ever. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has made these threats even more sophisticated, increasing the urgency for stronger disaster recovery solutions.

Thus, security-first disaster recovery is no longer a choice but a must-have to minimize costly downtime and critical data loss.

High-earning MSPs understand this shift, with 97% of them already offering managed security services, including endpoint detection and response (EDR), managed detection and response (MDR) and email security. However, security alone isn’t enough — you need resilience as well. On that front, BCDR ensures businesses quickly bounce back from attacks instead of facing downtime and data loss. Without BCDR, even the best security measures can’t guarantee business continuity.

MSPs are doubling down on resilience, and BCDR is quickly rising to be one of their top standalone offerings.

Alarmingly, MSPs currently have very low confidence in cyber insurance payouts — only 43% are “very” or “extremely” confident their clients will receive full compensation. This uncertainty makes disaster recovery an even more non-negotiable protection layer.

A $13 trillion problem: Why it’s also an opportunity for MSPs

According to Statista’s Market Insights, the global cost of cybercrime is set to skyrocket from last year’s $9.22 trillion to $13.82 trillion by 2028. MSPs and their clients certainly face increasingly complex IT environments.

However, this challenge also presents huge opportunities for MSPs to stand out, expand services and boost revenue. Here’s how:

The future is cloud-first — and BCDR must follow

Cloud-based disaster recovery is swiftly becoming the future, and the latest trends reinforce this shift:

The MSP playbook for 2025: Winning in a competitive, security-driven market

The MSP market is thriving, but only those who embrace automation, security and resilience are well poised to achieve lasting success. Bundling cybersecurity with BCDR can be a game changer for MSPs, helping them keep client environments efficient, secure and resilient while boosting profitability.

Where do you see the MSP industry heading? What managed IT services do you think will see the highest demand in the coming years? Share your thoughts — we’d love to hear from you!

Partner with Datto for more critical insights and actionable strategies to stay ahead, download the full report now.