MSP Perspectives 2024 Report

Businesses are increasingly turning to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for the expert support needed to secure their organization in the face of inevitable cyberattacks. Illustrating the accelerating demand, Canalys predicts that managed services revenue will grow at least 14% in 2024*.

In this fast-growing market, the growth opportunities for MSPs are considerable. Our inaugural MSP Perspectives 2024 report identifies the biggest challenges facing MSPs together with openings to accelerate business and profitability.

From reducing day-to-day overheads through management platform consolidation, to optimizing engagement with MDR vendors, and leveraging the interplay between cyber defenses and cyber insurance, the report highlights opportunities for MSPs to advance their businesses while elevating their clients’ protection against ransomware and breaches.

Insights from 350 MSPs across four countries

MSP Perspectives 2024 shares the outcomes of an independent survey of 350 MSPs in the U.S., UK, Germany and Australia, conducted in March 2024.

The report provides fresh insights into the reality of MSP operations today, focusing on five key areas of MSP business: RMM and PSA tools; cybersecurity management; MDR services; challenges and perceived risks; and impact of cyber insurance.

Read the report to explore the full findings and check out some of the key learnings below.

Biggest MSP challenges and risks

The survey revealed that the biggest day-to-day challenge facing MSPs is keeping up with the latest cybersecurity solutions/technologies, cited by 39% of those surveyed. MSPs also indicated that hiring new cybersecurity analysts to keep up with customer growth and keeping pace with the latest cyberthreats are among their top challenges.

The data also shows that shortage of in-house cybersecurity skills is perceived by MSPs to be the single biggest cybersecurity risk to both their own business and their clients’ organizations. They also consider stolen access data and credentials and unpatched vulnerabilities to be top-three risks for their customers.

As Scott Barlow vice president of MSP at Sophos, comments

“The speed of innovation across the cybersecurity battleground means it’s harder than ever for MSPs to keep up with threats and the cyber controls designed to stop them. When you couple this with a global skills shortage, which has made it infinitely more difficult for many MSPs to attract and retain cybersecurity analyst resources, its unsurprising that MSPs feel unable to keep pace with the changing threat landscape.”

Streamlining partnerships

 MSPs are streamlining their cybersecurity partnerships, typically working with a small number of vendors to secure their clients. The study revealed that over half (53%) of MSPs work with just one or two cybersecurity vendors, rising to 83% that use between one and five.

Reflecting the effort and overhead of running multiple platforms, MSPs estimate that they could cut their day-to-day management time by 48% if they could manage all their cybersecurity tools from a single platform.

Delivery of MDR services

In response to today’s complex threat landscape, there is growing demand for managed detection and response (MDR) services to provide always-on coverage. Currently 81% of MSPs offer an MDR service, and almost all (97%) MSPs that do not currently offer MDR plan to add it to their portfolio in the coming years.

66% of MSPs use a third-party vendor to deliver the MDR service and a further 15% deliver jointly through their own SOC and a third-party vendor.  Topping the list of essential capabilities in a third-party MDR provider is the ability to provide a 24/7 incident response service.

Accelerating MSP growth with the Sophos MSP program

The data shows that MSPs are strengthening their proposition and reducing overheads by amalgamating the platforms they use and engaging with third-party MDR vendors to expand their service offerings.

Sophos gives MSPs a complete portfolio of industry-best, fully managed security services and solutions, all managed through the Sophos Central security platform. Innovative, adaptive defenses and a complete MSP cybersecurity system deliver cyber confidence that empowers success.

To learn more visit www.sophos.com/msp or request an MSP Experience demo.

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* Canalys MSP Trends 2024 report