Cyberattacks on small businesses are becoming more frequent, targeted, and complex. According to Accenture’s Cost of Cybercrime Study, 43% of cyberattacks are aimed at SMBs, but only 14% are prepared. Spiking fear as they face more and more threats, SMBs are scared.
But with challenges, comes opportunities. This newfound awareness of the threats that exist has resulted in SMBs increasingly turning to MSPs as their go-to security experts. The world is investing in cybersecurity services and money is pouring in. Spending on cybersecurity has massively increased in 13 years. The importance of protecting our progressively digitized world is predicted to propel spending on cybersecurity products and services to a staggering $1.75 trillion between 2021 and 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures Market Report.
This intensified reliance on MSPs to provide cybersecurity expertise caught the attention of Malwarebytes. Best known for their top-notch malware remediation and anti-malware software solutions, Malwarebytes is now helping MSPs to capitalize on this growing trend. “The amount of spending on security services provided by MSPs is going crazy,” Josh Pederson, global product marketing director for Malwarebytes, says. “It’s the perfect time with a massive amount of opportunity around cybersecurity. Spending by SMBs on outsourced or managed security services has been strongly increasing in the past couple years, so there is a lot more revenue available for MSPs to earn from their SMB customers.”
But that doesn’t mean that SMB customers are going to pay MSPs more for the same service. Realizing that MSPs are going to need to do more for their customers, Malwarebytes looked at how they could enhance their platform to empower MSPs. Their new Malwarebytes partner program shaves minutes and hours off MSPs’ daily cybersecurity routines, gives MSPs a terrific profit margin, and provides new opportunities for MSPs to beef up their cybersecurity expertise and leverage that into new opportunities to make money.
Here are five strategies Malwarebytes’ top MSP clients are using to grow their business and capitalize on this crazy spending and investment in their space right now.
Create New Opportunities For Customers To Spend Money With You
MSPs are beefing up their expertise to provide extra services and training courses — which they charge for — by utilizing the Malwarebytes Academy. Included in the partner program, the academy contains a wealth of training resources. “The academy is full of security training,” Pederson explains. “MSPs can learn from our material, then create their own security awareness training courses on best practices, breach prevention, or any number of cybersecurity topics.”
MSPs also use the Malwarebytes Academy to train their team. “MSPs can give access to their whole team and are using it to ramp up their more junior level security people,” Pederson says. “Consulting is another option. MSPs can increase the money customers are spending by offering to put their top security guy in their customer’s company for a day. While previously, SMBs may typically only pay to manage endpoints and keep them secure, we’ve found that now SMBs are putting a lot more money into security evaluation and prevention, providing greater opportunity for MSPs to roll out new offerings.”
Maintain A High Profit Margin
MSPs choose from the three levels of endpoint protection that Malwarebytes offers to suit their budgets and the needs of their customers. And with a tailored pricing structure, MSPs find a strong profit margin when upselling Malwarebytes products. “MSPs that work with us can choose a tool like our EP tool and then upsell that to their customer,” Pederson explains. “It is extremely common for MSPs to see 60%-plus profit — so a very, very high margin.”
Boost Team Efficiency
By taking advantage of the top-notch business support and resources and the best-in-class endpoint security platform inside Malwarebytes, top MSPs are freeing up time for new, billable projects. Luke Santillo, senior IT consultant for Katana IT, states that they used to spend a high amount of labor handling an average of 12 endpoint issues each month. “Malwarebytes’ effectiveness is a major win,” he says. “That’s all recouped time and money we’ve gained.”
Malwarebytes OneView platform streamlines MSP operations and removes complexity. “We realized MSPs needed a singular dashboard to maintain all their customers in one place,” Pederson explains. “We developed OneView, so instead of them having to do one-off remediation and deal with individual customer sites and machines, now they can do it all from one central location using a single cloud-based console. We’ve streamlined routine manual processes with automation — automated remediation is a big one that helps shave minutes and hours off the daily routine of MSPs.”
Demonstrate Constant Value And Build Strong Customer Satisfaction
Top MSPs are finding creative ways to be more responsive and showcase the value they provide. “Small businesses want to trust you,” Pederson says. “But they realize that if they get hacked or hit with ransomware, that might be it for them, and so they are extremely cautious. Showing the value of MSP security services is extremely important so SMB customers can tie their monthly investment to tangible business value like uptime, maintaining productivity, or keeping their data secure. The reporting we provide in OneView can help to educate your customers and enable MSPs to relate how monthly scans, detections, and remediations relate to keeping the SMB productive. For example, an MSP might say, ‘Last month, we blocked 150 threats from your office. Your top three threats came from a ransomware that when it infects, it costs $40,000 in Bitcoin and two weeks of downtime.’ The MSP is basically telling the customer that we blocked ransomware last month, and here’s the potential impact of that ransomware, the downtime, loss of data, loss of money, and so on.”
Inspire Your Customers To Do More Business With You
Top MSPs find that when customers are more confident in them, they are more likely to say “Yes” when they offer a new training program or a new service.
“Clear and constant communication can get your customers to really love you,” Pederson said. “Keeping them heavily informed on your actions to prevent or remediate threats can almost act as a positive feedback loop for future renewal conversations and new training or service offers. Because you’re taking such good care of them, when you offer a new a security training course or product package, they’re more willing to take you up on the offer and spend more with you.”
“The world is investing in cybersecurity services and money is pouring in. Spending on cybersecurity has massively increased in 13 years. “
Cybersecurity expertise is a critical component in our current landscape. Stay relevant and capitalize on this surge of security spending as SMBs continue to invest heavier in both their in-house and outsourced security by joining the Malwarebytes partner program. When you do, you’ll provide the protection customers need while feeling more confident, experiencing higher profitability, more growth, and a huge savings in resources.
“Now is the time for MSPs to double down on their cybersecurity,” Pederson says. “There’s a lot of opportunity for MSPs right now, and we want you to know we’ve got you covered.”
