ON THE HORIZON
Changing Connections
A Challenging 2020 Accelerated Radical Changes To The Core Functions And Role Of MSPs
– John Emmitt , Director of Product Marketing , Kaseya
Connections . Ultimately , that ’ s what both business and life are all about . Connections between people — and the devices they use — create the pathways to exchange ideas , money , products , services , and data . Connections create the fabric of business , enabling a group of people to collaborate toward a shared goal and to reach customers with the value of their products or services . We have sought and expanded our connections since the dawn of man ; the entire evolution of our species can
be defined by the methods we ’ ve developed to connect to one another , from language and transportation to printed text , email , the internet , and social media . Put simply , as Sir Richard Branson said , “ Succeeding in business is all about making connections .”
MSPs In 2020 Were Tasked To SAVE Small Business .
It ’ s perhaps most fitting then that the most lasting effect of the 2020 pandemic may be the ways we have collectively shifted to digital connections to substitute for our inability to connect physically . The tools have been there for years , but some were scarcely used until 2020 necessitated that EVERYONE adopt them . From online food delivery to telemedicine , the pandemic accelerated and demanded our adoption of purely digital connections . That placed a new burden on MSPs , who were tasked to enable those new connections rapidly . To make the shift more challenging , it comes on the heels of an explosion in the number and diversity of devices and tools we use to connect . The result is that MSPs in 2020 were tasked to save small business by enabling new connections across an ever-expanding universe of devices and online services . Oh , and if you could do that while maintaining your own business as an MSP in the face of an economic crisis , that would be great ...
If you ’ re among the elders of technology , you remember when connections meant the ethernet-tethered , company-provided workstations of a typical office . Today , the breadth and diversity of devices has expanded to include not only laptops and servers , but also thousands of personal devices , cloud services , and connected " things ." For years , MSPs have dealt with the ever-expanding range of connected things to manage , layering new tools into their software kits to deal with the expanding definition of " endpoints ." The RMM ( remote monitoring and management ) solutions always served as the core platform to manage clients ’ devices and connections , but traditional RMMs weren ’ t built for a world where the device might be a mobile phone , tablet , cloud server , firewall , or smart light switch .
Vendors that supply software to MSPs have had to choose between expanding the breadth of their RMM or offering
6 | MSPSuccessMagazine . com • VOLUME 2 ISSUE 2