Events

MSPs Reveal How They’re Helping SMB Customers Start Their Cloud Journey

Joseph F. Kovar, CJ Fairfield, Wade Tyler Millward, Gina Narcisi

October 20, 2023, 10:36 AM EDT

Despite all the hype around moving to the cloud that has been going on for years, the reality is that there is still a wide swath of SMBs that have yet to get much beyond the basics of even cloud backups or Microsoft Office and are turning to their local MSPs for help. Here’s what several MSPs tell CRN about the opportunities they are seeing.

Bumps On The Journey To The Cloud

Moving applications and workloads to the cloud are supposed to bring a wide range of benefits, especially flexibility in operations and sometimes, but not always, lower costs. Plus there’s the perceived notion that if a business doesn’t move to the cloud, it will be in a poor competitive position with those that do.

However, when it comes to the actual environment in which many small and midsize businesses operate, the reality is that there is still a lot to do just to get them to take the most basic steps to the cloud.

CRN talked with several MSPs during the XChange NexGen 2023 conference, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company, about what they are seeing as some of the main workloads their customers are looking to take to the cloud, and for many it was as basic as getting them ready for data backups and disaster recovery.

For others, there was a bit more advanced workloads, including SaaS applications, security, virtual desktop and even DevOps. However, a lot of the MSPs’ efforts are still focused on helping their customers, primarily small and midsize businesses, take their first or second steps on their journey to the cloud.

Of course, any time businesses need help with IT, those become opportunities for MSPs, whose executives told CRN that they find success with customers at different stages in the journey.

“I’m on the East Coast where everything that happened in the world happens about five years later,” J. Alejandro Rosado, CEO of Lancaster, Pa.-based MSP 12:34 Microtechnologies, told CRN. “And so a lot of the workloads that we’re doing now, things that have been done for a while, include QuickBooks in the cloud, SQL apps, you know, normal everyday applications.”

Here is how a number of MSPs are finding opportunities with their customers.