The “shared responsibility” model of the cloud puts most of the control with Microsoft, despite the MSP being responsible. As shown below, Microsoft puts very little responsibility into the hands of the customer (or, in your case, the MSP), which is why most MSPs stick to the basic onboarding-related tasks as their Microsoft 365 offering. But the customer’s reliance on Microsoft 365 has changed in the last 14 months… and so have their expectations.

Before you can achieve access to any cloud service a connection to the internet is required. Sounds simple enough, however, the challenge lies not only with the internet connection itself, but the provider of the service as well. Not all internet service providers (ISPs) and pathways to the internet are created equally which makes assessing and understanding the quality of the service you’re on a critical step toward maintaining business productivity.

If a customer has an issue with any part of Microsoft 365, MSPs just don’t have the native visibility to identify the root cause, let alone respond to and remediate the problem. Most of the time, it’s little more than checking Microsoft’s Service Health status to see if Microsoft knows it’s having a problem.

The ability to maintain successful operations in business requires specific agreements that are critical to helping justify service delivery, understand the service performance, and get a budget for any potential infrastructure projects. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are made between partners and customers and focus on the commitment of the partner to uphold an agreed-to level of service.