Managed Service Providers (or MSPs) don’t always get a seat at the boardroom table when their clients are putting together forecasts on a quarterly or yearly basis. Many providers are looked at as “fixers” – and not necessarily as useful, strategic planners that can help to drive the same conversation.
Here are 3 practical ways your MSP can help you forecast next year’s IT costs – and why they should.
The Cost of IT
The IT department and its allocated budget has become one of the most important things to almost all companies who are hooked up to the internet. Statistics suggest that a company hack happens at least every 2 to 3 seconds – and companies with personal or client information to steal are even more at risk than this.
It means that companies have to increase their IT budgets to shore up their defenses and prepare for the worst.
If you are one of the few companies out there without an IT budget, prepare to spend more than your past projections on cybersecurity, protective measures, and anti-hacking.
With a higher projected risk for hacks in coming years, almost all companies out there have to prepare for it.
That’s where a company’s MSP comes in handy – and where they might have been secondary to the conversation before now, it’s time to rely more on the information that MSPs can provide.
Let’s face it: the majority of companies aren’t cybersecurity experts themselves. Without some help from your MSP in your budget, your potential projections are guesswork.
1. Preparing for Security Threats
In the nineties, the worst thing a company could face was a destructive worm or disabling virus that puts their entire corporation’s computers at risk. Today there are many more security threats out there than just worms and malware: there’s ransomware, and it could cost companies thousands in recovery if they are hit.
An MSP can help you to prepare for security threats, as they are generally more informed about the current state of the online environment than most of the board.
Don’t know how to prepare for the unseen threat of hackers and ransomware?
A well-informed MSP can point your company’s board in the right direction.
2. Identifying New Trends
Cybersecurity trends change almost every hour, from new threats that could hit companies through to new patches for operating systems that might present a fix – or the company’s biggest risk.
A company can’t identify new cybersecurity threats on its own. For most companies and their board, this is an impossible task – and most people on the average board are trained in PR and finance, not hacking and recovery!
An MSP can help companies to identify any new trends, whether it involves hardware, software or a new, costly system update.
3. Highlighting Existing Problems
There’s no such thing as a perfect company. Even large-scale ones like Coca-Cola are at risk, and they are in the business of constant risk and problem assessment – this way, customers will never notice!
An MSP can help you highlight existing problems in the company, especially those that are data-related or of cybersecurity nature.
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