Career Transition Series: How to Get Started as a Managed Service Provider

good morning good afternoon good evening and welcome to the Acronis Career Transition Series virtual event how to get started as a managed services provider I'm your host James Slaby I'm the director of cyber protection at a Cronus I have a couple of brief housekeeping notes to start off with the conference is being recorded and we will send you a link via email afterwards so that you can share the event with friends or colleagues who could not attend you'll be on mute throughout the conference but we are interested in getting your questions for our speakers and we'll have time at the end for them to answer those please use the Q&A interface on your zoom console not the chat if you can see chat ignore that please use Q&A at this point it's my great pleasure to introduce our speakers Roland Bartle his principal consultant for career management with the right management Switzerland group and a member of the board there as IT project manager and business architect of a leading financial institution mr. Bartel conducted various projects in a national and international environment for many years furthermore he gained valuable leadership experience on a cross-cultural level as head of the IT center Blue Lake Cameroon a project of development cooperation he has a battery of degrees and technical certifications that have rounded out his experience you should be very impressed by the insights he has to offer on your career development plans I'd also like to introduce my colleague at a Cronus ami Looby she is the channel chief evangelist at a Cronus and a successful leader and entrepreneur in the IT services Channel with an extensive record of achievement in channel sales program development and recruiting IT solutions providers she's got strong expertise and domain knowledge and the rapidly evolving global Manish cloud and security sir is marketplace and a proven track record of creating profitable managed and cloud product portfolios she's the founder and moderator of the global SMB managed services community which currently has 3,000 active global SMB and MSP reseller members a hugely influential forum in that community let me quickly go over the agenda Roland will start with some insights into how you can work during the lockdown there are a lot of issues around working from home that requires some changes to our habits and general strategies to stay motivated active and effective in your career transition search any we'll follow that out with a session on how to become a managed service provider a field that certainly a Cronus believes has incredible promise its most of our partners through which we sell our technology are in the MSP space I have young relatives that I recommend to get into this field because I believe that even in the midst of this downturn that it is tremendous growth opportunities as well as being an incredibly fascinating career to pursue will then invite Rowand back on stage and have a panel discussion we've got we'll take your questions get to as many of those as we can if we don't get to your questions we will follow up with you after the event so that you get those questions answered with that I will hand the stage over to Roland thank you James for this introduction and I will follow you will lead you now through a small presentation I provided to you and please click Change it's about unfolding your wings during the kovat 19 crisis and if you go back a little bit in time click then you will see that there have been such crises already before we take a look at the graph it happens hundred years ago when the Spanish flu was in our countries and the graph is like you see not only going up as our graph is going during correct kovat 19 it's also going down at a certain time so we are currently know that vertex but I think we will soon reach it and then you know when things are getting better also you know economics getting better usually clique so we have to acknowledge that we are in difficult times times which are not new to the mankind but may be new to you people went through this kind of situations in former times already and we all we all need to keep going yeah because you know we need to survive this kind of crisis as well click if you go back a little bit you know you see if there have been a lot of crisis for instance the Spanish or Spanish flu and twenty to fifty million people died but the good news is that after this kind of crisis the situation America's economy for instance grew 42% right afterwards so there is a good life afterwards as well although you know it if you take a look at the Asian flu which happened in 56 to 58 Dow Jones went fifteen percent down during this time but also afterwards for instance in the UK there was an economy grow of 30 percent so it's quite a lot there we managed also the Hong Kong flu with death toll of 1 million people and you're also managing the AIDS pandemic which is still alive you know there is no recognition already around but we live with it and now we are facing covered 19 nobody knows when its end nobody knows how many people will die but for sure this pandemic will end some zambra and then we can move on there's also another crisis thank you if you we if we took if we take a look at the economical crisis there have been the Great Depression which we survived it lasts for ten years already and 25 percent of the people have been unemployed we survived oil price shock in the Seventeen's we survived all of the Asian crisis in 1997 and not too far away but also in our heads already I think the financial crisis from 2007 to 2008 is still in our heads and click there we all face personal crisis my personal my really personal crises are describe key you know I've been at university and finished my degree as a mechanical engineer in 1995 and this was a situation that nobody wants to have a mechanical engineer so I was topless during this time I did some other studies at this time and ended up being an IT project manager and enterprise architect until I figured out that in 2004 please maybe the environment where I am in in the banking industry that's not the environment which way I want to stay for my life so I decided to change my to change my job at the end so which I did and in 2005 after I came back from the development date project in Cameroon I started my own business although I went back to the IT and I went back to the banks all now as an external one doing IT project management and also enterprise architecture which leads me directly into the financial crisis so therefore it was quite heavy for me and my family of course and thanks to my wife you know if server we survived this situation that we that was really not not a good situation at all so I know what crisis means and but anyhow the next step I took I got back to University I did my it's a Catholic get back to University I did my degree in coaching I have a master's in coaching and I ended up right now since five years I'm working with right management it's part of the manpower group in talent solution doing career transition management and workers career management so I know how the transition will feel like and you know we crossed a lot of crisis in our life and crisis is part of our life but one simple thing is you have to prioritize find help and care for yourself during this kind of situation click and one thing is really we have to acknowledge that there are situations in life where we do not have an efficient coping mechanism that happens but don't give up with our persistency our able ability to create new ideas we are able to cope this kind of situations click one important thing you need to cope with situation is resilience that means you have to accept the situation you have to be optimistic also solution oriented you need to be a child you know looking around you know where it's my way it's not only one way which I have to follow there are several ways which I can follow so be PHR enough to look at the things in a different way and you have to be able to learn things you know to adapt yourself into different situations and environments the behavior you need is to be very structured for yourself you have to structure your life you have to prioritize your life you have to be positive and realistic both only positive alone is not enough it also should be realistic and what you need to do is doing some networking so it's good for us that we have kind of linkedin and all these social media things it's easy to be connected in this certain times at the moment click when I go when I see you different situations in your life might be that you're in home office at the moment it might be that your furlough situation or maybe you're searching for a job I put the focus on this today on the job search but even then you know for the others I think it's also important what I want to say I also say a little bit about home office in furlough and which happens right now it's maybe a little bit more in a in a way to to smile click because when I think of home office most of the people are thinking of crying kids at home and doing during your household when when also cooking and also doing your job and all these things but they're also good things are happening you know think about the digital digitalization so there was a quite good boost on the digitalization it's not because we have managed to do that because we must manage digitalization so a lot of people are staying at home doing the work in circumstances which are maybe not always good but some of them or some of the people are really appreciate this kind of situation click some of the people like introverts they are happy with the situation so but we also can learn from them you know we have to acknowledge that the situation we are in doing maybe you're locked in your room this will be maybe for one week for a month or something but in a certain time it will ends but you can learn from others maybe to cope this situation and some introverts are coping quite good because they are enjoying staying at home so also here you have to prioritize find help and care for yourself tick people in furlough situation are in a better situation because they are still bringing value to the business maybe you're not paid for in this situation or only partly paid or maybe you're paid I don't know but still you know meant the whole thing will end you know we with you you're able to go back to your work and bring value to your business but still now you have time to take control and prepare for your future step back reflect yourself and think about yourself what you can do better in the future and maybe the next analyzers will help you as well when I come to the top less click when they they are currently really in the bad situation because you know it's all digital it's all online which you have to do but anyhow you have the possibility to analyze the situation if you have to analyze the organisation's at the moment you have to analyze yourself and then you maybe you can match you know what the market is searching and what you're offering in this situation so I will help you on that a little bit when click when I put a look at the hiring trends which are changing at the moment during the kovat 19 and please check out also our manpower group talent solution weekly covered 19 updates online here you will see you know what other changes are week by week and I put out some interesting things you know for instance if we take a look at the top chops today it's yeah it's nurses drivers but nurses haven't been on the top jobs before yeah so there are a lot of things are going on and even you know if number three is clerk super cashier it's more on the online business of course but still people are searched there on the IT side it it is more that security analysts are searched because of the utilization of course now a lot of people are searching right now more security in their in their business because it's online business also you will find these 24% of these openings have a minimal job requirement 25 are professionals and 51 need medical training or licenses you know these all these things you will find on our homepage click you also can go back and search for analyzes on banks and consulting enterprises they have tons of material analyzing already you know which kind of industry will be winning which kind of industry will lose during this situation so focus on the low exposure ones like construction defense retail or packaging and there are also winners now the Internet services companies for instance or retail online retail or even gold mining you know all these kind of things is good for us click and you have the possibility to analyze the marketing trends so what what are people searching for people searching for finance food healthcare or also media and formats so these will be the trends for the future at the moment so all these kind of organizations will do well in the next weeks and months click if we think a broad there's also a possibility you know covered 19 will lead us to a new normal how this new normal look like it's kind of you know what kind of industry will change for instance in food industry now can you imagine what what happens there how we will deliver for instance fresh food in the future or in the entertainment industry gaming yeah or the gaming industry for instance or cooking and music classes on virtual bass education sports and well-being yeah all these virtual classrooms which are popping up at the moment which is a good thing in the service industry or smell you know think about all the contactless systems which are needed in the future also for health care and health technology of course here telemedicine might be an thing or smart hospitals will grow and digital medical assistance will grow and all these things which now there's a big boost on that on electrical apply electrical appliances it's sterilization machines for instance yeah so can search for that and last but not least but think also about these office cost reductions opportunities when organizations figure out at home office is a good thing yeah then maybe they will switch more to home office and what does it mean to us click now we have analyzed you know the hole in environment now it's coming back to you and this is maybe a more difficult analysis for you but it's really really useful to go back to work so for instance you have a lot of skill sets personal social medic methodical and technical skills and if you analyze yourselves then you think about your personality for instance who you are what is my unique selling point and and personal maybe it's your attitude and your trustworthy a resilient realistic now on the social skills side maybe it's your communication but you're easy in interacting with others or you're very tolerant for instance on the methodical side it's maybe this it's problem-solving skills which are very good you know you're able to analyze difficult situations and go step by step plans then also technical easiest waveform for me to explain its linguistic maybe you're you're very off you can speak a lot of languages click then you put this together to a 30-second spot so your name your responsibilities your achievements your biggest skills and your unique selling point your interests and your future plans set together into 30 seconds maximum one minute so that's you then you have made a lot of thinking to go there and if you have prepared this then you can start to - and you can start to build some stories around you click following this kind of process you you have some challenges with which you coped in your past what was my problem what was my challenge what was my role how did I what was the setting around and then you did some actions on it well describe what we have done and describe all the result was it a good result are you proud of it I hope so if not what you can do differently the next time also if you have been proud of it now and this kind of stories you when you have prepared all of this yet and you can do a kind of mapping click you will bring together all your analyzes on the macro-environment it means in analyzing the market and on the micro management analyzing yourself if you have analyzed yourself and see the value for the market then you can start to sell yourself on the market click so I hope you keep going I hope you won't be pessimistic I hope you want you are optimistic in this process if you're not optimistic at the moment fake it because this helps you fake to be optimistic and each day is a new day of opportunities you have to see to improve yourself take it take this day and make them out most out of it click so short summarization a crisis are part of a human experience we have to acknowledge that humanitarian crises are more traumatic than economic crisis because it hurts unity people are dying but usually after humanitarian crisis there is usually a thriving economy so it's coming back all this time is also an opportunity so stay optimistic reflect yourself be ready for the next chapter in your life and check your market on opportunities instead of hiding away you will discover also a lot of chances out of this crisis and maybe you in ten years you reflect yourself and saying you know that was the best thing that ever happened to me yeah I hope so and if to go there I just like you to say you know you prioritize your day you structure your day talk with friends but also care for yourself click and that's I'm coming back 200 years ago Hemingway was surviving the Spanish flu and later he described for setting and to be in quarantine as a splendid place to write so thanks to Hemingway and thanks to for to this setting that he has been able to write a lot of books and bring a lot of information to us and that's it from my side and I like to hand over right now to Amy thank you for that Ron that was fantastic I've been through a couple of downturns in my tech career wish I'd had that advice then we're now going to go from Roland's broad strategies for working from home and strategizing your transition to your next career to a bit more specifics specifically how you can pursue a career in the managed service provider space so over to you Amy perfect thank you James today I'm going to talk about my journey transitioning from nursing into IT but before I go into my personal journey let's look briefly at what an MSP is and the current market opportunity click very simply an MSP or managed services provider is an IT services organization that delivers services proactively under a subscription model proactive is the key word and it's the fulcrum upon which the MSP leverages their value proposition and marketing selling and maintaining their client base being able to remotely monitor manage and ultimately prevent downtime is the key value that the MSP delivers to their client base click the MSP market is over 190 billion today and North America is the largest MSP in terms of revenue generated to break down the MSP deliverable in the different segments in the small business sector MSPs become the IT department so small businesses generally don't have an IT person or an IT department so the MSP fits the role of delivering a hundred percent of the IT function for those organizations a majority of MSPs globally cater to this particular SMB segment in the mid market and enterprise these larger companies the msps provides specific support with the corporate IT department together and they may provide just a range of different services depending on what that IT department needs and then we have global systems integrators and consulting firms who offer a range of enterprise level services Accenture CSC their giant consulting firms and even hewlett-packard and IBM compete care click but most MSPs they're small they're small businesses on average they have eight employees and a million in annual annual revenue click to learn more about what an MSP is I have a training class I'm Acronis calm entitled what is a managed services provider or MSP so feel free to go check that out click now on to my story so I didn't start NIT my degree is actually in nursing and I spent about four years as an oncology nurse before leaving that role to stay home with my children after leaving my nursing career I went to work part-time for a small marketing firm and did remote work on a project basis for them I built marketing databases and this particular firm focused on auto dealers so I built and maintained marketing databases for them when you bought a car you'd get a thank-you letter and then a reminder for an oil change three months later and a birthday card and so on as I was doing this part-time I took a few networking courses which used to be called mcse or Microsoft Certified systems engineer those courses have evolved and are called different names today but I started first in database development and added that network management piece as a young mother at that time I was pretty happy doing my site gig and it was nice to have the extra spending money I thought frequently about taking my business full-time but I wanted to wait until my children were in school my plans then though were derailed by 9/11 when the terrorist attacks happened our economy here ground to a halt and my husband lost his job a month later as October passed we went into November and by Christmas we had gone through the small savings we had we had five children at the time and nobody was hiring like nobody both of us were looking for work I had enrolled in a nurse refresher course while at the same time I was interviewing for IT jobs my mother actually started to help us pay our mortgage and helped us buy groceries but as March approached approached we were in really bad shape financially my husband finally did get hired into another sales role but it was commissioned only one of our cars had actually been repossessed and I was at the end of my rope one particular day that March I spent an hour on the phone with a woman who had moved to Omaha and had just purchased an IT services franchise she didn't have IT experience and she needed to hire an engineer to help her grow the business it seemed like a great fit for me and she seemed excited to the next step for me was the in-person interview I remember being so nervous driving to that interview I needed to make money at that moment as I pulled up her office was dark and the door was locked she had actually stood me up I was so angry and scared and as I sat in my car crying literally I thought if this woman can move here buy a franchise without any IT experience and think she can run an IT shop better than I can well no she can't I was born and raised here I had all kinds of local connections I had a network administration as a certification that gave me the basic skills that I needed to configure install and manage small business networks I literally registered my business that day and I spent the last five hundred dollars I had on signage for my van basic network technician tools and a Chamber membership I also took the CompTIA A+ exam to prove I had basic Hardware skills as well I knew I needed to get selling and my local Chamber of Commerce was a local and a large and active Chamber I didn't have enough money to pay for the full three hundred dollar annual membership so I went on the monthly plan that same week though I went to my first chamber meeting where I met a man named Roger he had a small but growing landscaping business he needed computers and a small network set up Roger was my first client and I was able to actually pay my mortgage that month with what I earned from that project and I never looked back my first company was called MOBA Tech and I started as a one-man show doing everything selling installing and managing small business networks by the end of that first year I had two employees and as we grew the company I started to focus more on sales and operations where my business partner focused on the tech we'll say we grew the business for about four years and then we saw an opportunity to pivot into what is now called the master MSP this business called MSP Services Network delivered 24/7 NOC and help desk services under a white label model to other MSPs we helped them grow and scale their businesses by being the back-end service provider under their brand in 2010 MSP services network was acquired and after a year of staying on the board I moved over to the vendor side and have since worked with software vendors like Acronis to help them build their MSP channel programs click in my particular case I started my business in a recession and I survived the next recession of 2007 I learned database programming on my own but then went to a Microsoft certified training organization to get my mcse certification there will be several of these training centers in your local area and if you do an online search you'll find them there are also online training centers for those who prefer online courses also my a plus certification came from CompTIA the computing technology industry association is a non-profit trade organization who issues professional certifications for the information technology industry to get started these particular certifications are vendor and manufacturer neutral and they certify you to have the requisite knowledge about a particular area rather than a particular product it's a great place to start and CompTIA also has a program called creating IT futures where you can apply to be trained in information technology to prepare you for a job in IT it's specifically designed for people in career transition also I recently saw that one of my local universities is offering free bachelor degrees for folks who have a household income of under $60,000 you may have similar university programs near you I encourage you to check out all the charity organization and vendor resources the MSP channel community also has many other types of resources like our politics popular book managed services in a month click we have 31 distinct communities 54 magazines 64 podcasts and 24 associations it's a wonderful community to build on sharing best practices resources and expertise in an effort to help you grow your business click here I've highlighted the groups that I've been involved with and continue to work with you can begin to engage the community today by checking out any of the organizations or groups here on this list if you google them you'll find them all I'd encourage you to take some time to research all of the conference's the peer groups social media groups podcast associations magazines and influencers you'll find endless resources help books training and certifications click podcasting has also become a popular Avenue to share ideas and I encourage you to add these to your favorite podcast streaming platform these MSP specific podcasts are a great way to learn what's happening now in the channel and where the opportunities are for building a business if this coming recession is anything like the recession of 2007 about 25% of IT services organizations went away but at the same time there was a huge influx of new consultants and MSPs who had been let go from previous jobs who entered this space and were successful creativity and willingness to change are the keys to success in transitioning your career at any time but especially in a recession it is absolutely possible to be successful now and James back to you thanks Amy I know we've been working together for some weeks now but I didn't actually know your story it's really inspirational I hope the audience finds it that way to audience I encourage you to keep asking questions with the Q&A interface I'm going to invite Roland back on stage as well speakers please turn your cameras on so we can see you and unmute your microphones and let's see a question here think Roland this is probably a good one for you to take how can I motivate myself in this situation to learn something new thank you good question I think learning is something which will accompany your lifelong every situation in your life will tell you something about you you have to first in order to see where I'm coming from where I'm going to and also you know what what is what is my personality about and then think about you know what can I learned out of my situation out of this kind of situation which I'm in at the moment it learning does not mean you're honoring reading books or going to do to university your booking stores it's also you know take a look at the certain things try to find the best way you have to cope it and then try it yeah it's also try and error it's a lot of learning as well so you can motivate yourself by doing things think about tomorrow I want to do this structure yourself and then do it now that's that's a simplest advice I can do thanks for that rolling Amie any thoughts there um you know for me it's really staying centered and taking a step back a little bit from news and everything else that's going on and and find time really for myself to you know read a book anything that I can possibly do to kind of remove the clutter and get my headspace clear so for me it's more about that that way I can stay kind of focused then on what's important to me and where I want to go great stuff this is one I think you can both answer Amy why don't we start with you on this one was the transition from a technical role to a management role a difficult one um for me not not terribly difficult I mean I was an engineer but I was never going to be the greatest engineer on the planet so I knew that I needed to bring that talent on when I first started eventually in order to grow my business in the way that I wanted to grow it so it really wasn't that difficult and I think just being bent that way part of being a good manager is knowing where your limitations are and bringing people in who can who can fill that requisite and help you build your business in a really good way so so for me it wasn't terrible I mean I had to learn the basics you know how to hire out a fire you know I had to get really good at economics and and running a piano and things like that but I was was kind of bent that way so it was natural for me Roland I know you've worn both those hats as well what's your thoughts on this oh it was a little bit different because I when I was working as an IT specialist it was you know it was always my topic I want to understand the psychology of the people and to understand the psychology of people means also you know how to manage people because if you understand other people's then you know how to treat others in the right way and therefore it wasn't quite obvious to me that I will step the neck I will do the next step to some to go into the management role and what most important thing is when it was always the aim of me if that I support the others you know that I'm helping the others to be create in their work and that I did already before and without the management role and now have responsibility responsibility to do so thank you Thanks I really like this question and based on both your stories that we've heard today I think you can you've got some good answers there for it how can I practice how can I practice resilience Roland why don't you start with that yeah I think there are a lot of things you have to to do first of all you have to get enough sleep because if your tie you can't focus on yourself maybe you have to practice also thought awareness that means think positive think watch yourself while you're talking is it negative or positive if you're always talking negative you have to change something that's something you have to it's easy to do but it's not easy to change it's easy to reflect yourself but it's not easy to change yourself and also in this kind of situation put some targets to yourself you know this smart thing being specific measurable achievable and there must be resolved in kind of time so these kind of things will help you know to to encourage your inner resilience because you can train it some of us have it more by nature others less but you all can train it you know this there is a possibility to get the next step to be more optimistic to find new ways and also to cope the situations then fantastic Amy I know usually based on your story you've got some thoughts on the notion of resilience well I will tell you some practical things and and for me this was really hard you know when when you know you don't have another corporate paycheck coming my knee-jerk reaction is to panic and start looking for jobs and you know I spend a ton of time in front of the computer I want to see what's open and what I can apply for and um you know obviously you have to take care of the practical side right but at the same time going down a rabbit hole like that all day long can really bring you down and so I had to really discipline myself and schedule my days in those early days where I spent maybe a couple hours first thing in the doing the things that I needed to do to either find you know early on before I started the business to find a job or bring some money at whatever but then step away from that and allow myself to enjoy some time and do something that I enjoy whether it was gardening or whatever it was even if it was for a short period of time that day and that's hard when you're in panic mode really hard and I get that but I promise it's extremely important to step away physically and mentally from that situation put yourself into another situation which can be enjoyable your creativity will start to flow you'll start to think about things a little differently and it will help you take that next step it'll get your mind set to the point where you know new ideas or different ideas can actually enter your mind and then you can start to think about those and plan on that that's great stuff all right let's move to a question that's a little bit more business and technical oriented here what are the trends right now that we can take advantage of in starting our own MSP and I guess clearly aimed at you any trends I security I mean Security's top of mind for everybody and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it and anybody an IT has to have a requisite level of security skills today period whether you're working for an organization or whether you're working for yourself so that's definitely number one and I would say you know even Roland Roland mentioned some sectors that are going to grow that you could take advantage of so from an IT consulting perspective specializing in an area can be really helpful where you really go deep into one area maybe not so wide but deep into a particular area whether that's healthcare or whatever you know there are so many things you can do in IT and if you have a particular interest around a particular type of business or sector or technology dive right into it make sure you've got security covered and go at it from that tack that's how I would do it today Amy I've got another very pragmatic kind of question for you here what can our audience expect as a salary for a very beginner MSP specialist you know a lot of the one-man shops one-man bands you know they're pulling in a six-figure total revenue okay so there's a one-man shop you know they're probably pulling in on average somewhere around 150 to 200 thousand dollars at the end of that year that's total revenue for their business that's not necessarily what they're taking home but I think that's a realistic first step in starting a business from scratch as a one-man band you know obviously as you grow you know the average MSP is a million in revenue so at that point you know your ownership is more than likely taking a six-figure income that's something to aspire to for sure Roland I think this one is for you I would like to change my profession how realistic is that so it depends depends on the people you know on your let me let me put it like this you know a member coach I'm in supporting right now for more than 10 years already people who want to change their professions and about you know that there are coming so telling me you know I want to be to be this and this and this and then I figure out with them you know I have to train yourself you have to do that and that that and most of the people if they really want to range they are able to cope the situation so they will go back to learn something they'll go back to big get a bigger network on this profession they wanted to have because if you want to change you need two things you need the right network how where you can spread out you know where you can tell the people that's me I want to be with you and what you also need is you know the right background if you for instance starting only I want to be an astronaut and they haven't even done a training right now then it won't be is very realistic to be an astronaut tomorrow but if I say you're dashing my childhood dreams there but go on sure but if you're telling you for instance I wanted to be an IT specialist by next year then it can happen because then you can sit today and start your training and also you know day by day you will be more increase your proficiency at the moment and then you will be there at them I've won once in a time but it needs a little bit of time yes that's right it's not from today on tomorrow that you're changing your profession it's little needs a little bit of time and also your courage to go there thanks for that Amy I'm gonna ask you a couple of again more specific to the MSP business questions what is your forecast for the MSP business after the pandemic will it grow further or is this just a kind of a temporary growth spurt that you envision well I you know MSPs out of all of the IT service provider types were most prepared for this pandemic they were most prepared to help people work remotely that's the core of what an MSP organization does and is so the interesting part of that is as I mentioned on one of those slides a majority of MSPs have played in the small business space where small business owners don't have an IT person or an IT department they typically have not played largely in the mid market where an organization has IT people traditionally the mid market IT organization has seen an MSP as a competitor or someone who's a threat to their job today those mid market organizations those IT folks in mid markets are completely overwhelmed right now with trying to get their corporate workers working productively from home it doesn't mean they don't have skills they definitely have skills but there's a huge difference between supporting 250 people in a single building versus supporting those 250 people when they're all working from home and then MSP was perfectly poised to do that so now msps have become er about relevant to all sizes of organizations because of their specialty skillset in managing remote workers securing remote workers and supporting them so so I see us continuing to grow quickly and have a tremendous opportunity frankly here in this particular pandemic situation well we're out of questions at the moment I want to thank you both for two terrific presentations and for your insights and frankly inspirational stories I wanted to send the audience home with just a few closing remarks number one this is just the first in a series of of educational virtual events that occur onus is offering on May 7th we're doing one called how to get started in information security and that will be followed with an event on how to get started as an IT professional we don't have a date set for that one yet it'll probably happen in May but if you go to a Cronus dot events you can keep up on the details of of those those those conferences if you're not familiar with the Cronus we the managed service provider channel is an enormous part of our business it's the fastest growing part of our business so we've developed a few programs to help them help their customers during the pandemic if you're not familiar with things like a Cronus cyber files cloud you can think of it as like a Dropbox light capability but more secure and we're offering that to our service provider partners for free we're also allowing them to give free backup capacity in a Cronus cyber backup cloud and the combination of our new Acronis cyber protect product which is a suite of cyber security services that MSPs can deliver to their customers for the same price that they currently offer just backup as a service to their customers and we're all giving those away until the end of July to kind of help our partners and their customers get over the worst of the pandemic hump with that I would like to say thanks everybody for your time and attention wishing you all the best in the in the challenging months ahead please come back to our future events and have a great and safe day afternoon or evening wherever you are thanks everybody

Channel: Acronis

Views: 2,067

Keywords: Acronis, CyberFitEvents, CareerTransition, FindJob, MSP, AmyLubi, RolandBartl

Id: PAfGkINxx_k

Length: 52min 51sec (3171 seconds)

Published: Fri May 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/bagaudin]

Publishing two recordings of our recent Career Transition series webinars. Any feedback is very welcome.