At the beginning of October, conveniently dubbed National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the Auvik team descended on the city of Pittsburgh to attend Continuum Navigate East 2019. With recent MSP-targeted ransomware attacks fresh in the minds of all attendees, cybersecurity took the event by storm—from keynotes to casual conversations, there was no escaping it. What was everyone saying? We put together a list of four key takeaways from the event to fill you in.

In 2018, we released the inaugural Managing Network Vendor Diversity Report, where we discovered that MSPs face a serious challenge: There’s high vendor diversity in the network hardware they operate. In the short year since then, the managed services industry has experienced a lot of change: tech trends are evolving, new products are being released, and client expectations are growing. So what was true in 2018 might not be any longer.

Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) are IT companies that operate some portion of their customer’s security infrastructure such as firewalls, VPNs, spam / antivirus systems, and intrusion detection tools.

As the managed services market becomes increasingly competitive, you’re likely looking for ways to boost your MSP’s productivity and efficiency. You’ve already got a stellar PSA, RMM, and network management tool, but you need something more. You need something like a TED Talk… or six… to inspire fresh ideas and make your MSP the best it can be. That’s why we surfed the web and found six seriously awesome speakers to bring you a new perspective on your business.

Managed service providers (MSPs) simplify IT for global organizations of all sizes — and cloud services present new opportunities that enable these service providers to grow their revenues. Now, let’s take a closer look at MSPs and how they can capitalize on cloud services.

Let’s be honest: Network management is a big responsibility. It includes monitoring and controlling a computer network to ensure all of its resources—both hardware and software—are in good shape and are being used productively. And if you’re not a network expert (or don’t have one on your payroll), that probably sounds pretty intimidating. But there’s no time like the present to tackle the topic of network management head on.

Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” That statement couldn’t be further from the truth—but there is an opportunity that MSPs are missing in the Wi-Fi market. If you think about the Wi-Fi market today, it’s an incredibly well-known and mature solution category, where most vendors offer highly similar products that provide a very similar set of capabilities.

We’re pleased to come home from DattoCon19 with memorable experiences. It was a well-curated conference, striking a fine balance between emerging MSP trends, informative sessions, networking and of course, entertainment. Here are my top takeaways from the event.

One of the common pieces of advice I hear given to managed service providers (MSPs) is to “go narrow”—find a niche and become a specialist. This is generally sound advice. Specialization typically means your MSP faces less competition and becomes much easier to find in an otherwise crowded marketplace. But finding an area to specialize in is easier said than done. So how do you find a great niche for your MSP?

To grow your MSP’s revenue and business performance, the best sales tool isn’t a selling platform or a ninja-rockstar-unicorn sales hire. It’s documenting and optimizing your sales process. Just like your favorite sports team follows a game plan to win, your sales team needs a playbook to close more business.