John Pagliuca, CEO of N-able, has taken issue in the press multiple times with the term digital transformation, preferring the term digital evolution. I agree that evolution is a better term. Digital transformation implies a one-time event; digital evolution acknowledges the ongoing nature of these changes. In short, the market will continue to change. How you adapt dictates whether you come out far ahead or remain with the status quo.

IT is not a technology cost, it’s a human resource cost! This is a fundamental concept MSPs need to keep in mind when they are looking at their businesses, but one many smaller MSPs tend to overlook. Think about it; for every business you’re supporting as an MSP, you’re doing so to ensure their IT infrastructure has stability of operation and is optimized to maximize staff productivity.

From my previous blog, I’m going to continue the list of five things you can do to improve your technical service delivery to your customers (if you didn’t read the last post, you can catch up on what you missed here (link)). In the following three points, I focus on the role automation can play.

If you attended our recent virtual Empower event you may have seen the extensive session on mergers and acquisitions. We’ve witnessed a large amount of M&A activity within the MSP space over the past few years as a result of the managed services business model becoming attractive for private equity investment. According to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase, M&A activity was at an all-time low in 2020, except within the technology sector.

Many managed services providers (MSPs) depend on word-of-mouth referrals to generate new customers and grow their business. And while relying on these can work to a degree—especially if your company provides outstanding customer service—it isn’t an ideal strategy if you want to really scale or grow. There are several serious downsides to relying solely on these types of referrals.

In around 2003 I worked as a level one tech for a very large customer contact center (1,500 call center agents) for a major American hardware vendor. This was around the height of adware and other greyware hitting Windows XP.

We’ve seen a number of MSPs hesitant to dive into using Microsoft Intune for their customers. One reason for this is that it may require them to encourage customers toward Microsoft 365 Business Premium, which, at an additional cost per seat, may seem like a tall order for a client for a 30-person team. It’s also a new discipline for many technicians, and often requires they find time to hone their skills while tackling existing tickets throughout a normal day.

You may have seen we announced recently that we have more than 50 technology providers active within our Technology Alliance Program (TAP). These providers include many well-known technology leaders, like Cisco, Sophos, and Webroot, alongside emerging innovators, including Liongard and Zomentum.

My colleague Lewis Pope, our head security herd, wrote an excellent blog last week about hardening N-able™ RMM. I thought it prudent, in light of recent developments, to do the same for the N-able N-central® product. A lot of it is common knowledge, but I wanted to put together a checklist so you can review the security of your N-central platform and ensure you’re meeting some of these best practices.

I’m a big fan of Saturday Night Live, and one of my most favorite skits is from the 1994/1995 season called Bathroom Monkey with Janeane Garafalo. It’s a fake television ad of a woman sitting on her couch, talking about how difficult it is to keep her bathroom clean. She describes this new product she discovered called “Bathroom Monkey” and how the Bathroom Monkey system can keep her entire bathroom clean for up to eight whole months—and she is loving it.

Providing exceptional customer service can leave little time for businesses to focus on marketing, which could be why a majority of MSPs rely on word-of-mouth referrals to grow. But relying on word-of-mouth referrals can lead to inconsistent growth, leaving you unable to accurately plan for the future. Marketing, on the other hand, allows you to sell your services with intention—helping you increase revenue by generating more consistent new customer leads and upselling current customers.

One of the top Elite partners I enjoy working with is an MSP based out of White Salmon, Washington called Radcomp. Over the years, I’ve worked closely with their manager of operations, Tyrell Midland. We’ve had all sorts of candid conversations in that time, but one we had last week I thought would make a great blog post.

The recent Kaseya VSA cyberattack is an important reminder of how security works best when we approach it as a community. The adversarial pivot to supply chain-based attacks for delivering ransomware underscore the role we all must play in helping to keep each other protected.

When security is done well it’s not always convenient. Advanced security can sometimes even mean minor inconveniences to MSPs and their employees. But the rise in ransomware attacks requires improved security measures and harder environments, making small inconveniences worth it in the long run. In this blog I’ll look at some options for how you can harden your N-able™ RMM dashboard.

Fast, reliable recovery is the whole reason we do backups in the first place. But the complexity of managing multiple backup products, juggling ever-growing local storage, keeping backup chains error free, and coordinating off-site backup storage can have a negative impact on the reliability that brings peace of mind. The more staff, people, and vendors are involved, the less likely your process will be consistent and error-free.