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WATCH: Navigate 2018 Kicks Off With A Warning For MSPs

Continuum Managed Services opened up Navigate 2018, its annual partner conference, urging MSPs to evolve before it’s too late.

“The biggest issue about security is how to pivot a traditional managed service provider into a managed security service provider,” said Michael George, CEO of Boston-based Continuum.

George predicts that the MSP industry will see drastic change over the next two years. Pointing to Continuum research, he discussed three big factors that will make it possible for just 20 percent of the 40,000 MSPs nationwide to control 80 percent of available revenue streams. Contributing factors include: a reduction in the workforce by 40 percent, a mass market consolidation through mergers and acquisitions and the evolving landscape of cybersecurity.

“More MSPs will get fired for failing to deliver security services than anything else,” said Fielder Hiss, the vice-president of product at Continuum. “The SMBs are one of the largest attack vectors out there.”

MSPs agree that the cybersecurity landscape has challenged them in new ones. However, some say it’s become an advantage for their business.

“Some of our competitors are still in the mode of how the industry operated 5 or 6 years ago,” said Paul Rouse, president of Rouse Consulting Group based in Illinois and a partner of Continuum. “You know the challenge is maintain the promise we made to customers and reinventing ourselves. Many of the security things we are talking about weren’t even on the plate years ago and now they are just an expectation.”

“I went from being Chicken Little five or six years ago to being sought after for my expertise,” said Joy Beland, CEO of Pink Hat Technology based in California. “And, it took a lot of learning about cybersecurity and investing in the tools and the resources.”

Continuum introduced the Continuum Security Go-To-Market Business Plan to help MSPs navigate the challenges ahead. For more on that, watch the video included in this article.