MSP Year-in-Review: The Highlights of 2021

The year 2021 started with the COVID-19 pandemic still at its peak. As global businesses began embracing the remote work model, the tech landscape changed drastically. MSPs, as always, were at the vanguard of facilitating this change. While challenges existed in various aspects of technology and security, it was overall a great year that brought forth a lot of good in the MSP world.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the strategies and processes that yielded positive outcomes and resulted in growth and profitability for most MSPs.

Virtual hiring and training

In this day and age, businesses cannot afford to cease operations under any circumstances. That’s why hiring and training new talent quickly and efficiently is a must to ensure seamless operational continuity. However, hiring the right employees and quickly bringing them up to speed proved to be a huge challenge for companies that adopted remote and hybrid work environments. Once again, it was technology that solved this issue. Many MSPs quickly embraced virtual onboarding and offboarding to train their own employees as well as the employees of their clients. This move ensured the timely adoption of new technologies and ultimately proved beneficial for businesses.

Growth and efficiency through automation

One of the major highlights of the year was the acceleration of digital trends in the IT industry and the changes it brought forth. One such major technology trend was automation. By automating various manual processes, MSPs were able to free up technician time so that they could focus on core tasks that generated revenue. MSPs that invested in automation at the right time almost eliminated the dependency factor and achieved maximum efficiency.

Next level in security offerings

Cybercrimes were at an all-time high this year. However, this also presented a massive business opportunity for MSPs. A survey by Barracuda MSP estimated that 80% of MSPs considered security to be a major business opportunity in this evolving tech landscape. MSPs that managed to act fast and secure their clients’ businesses became IT heroes. They were able to boost their business growth by saving time, money and a lot of unnecessary hassle.

Co-managed IT

Co-managed IT is touted as the next big thing in the IT world. If you want to reach the next level, you need to focus on becoming your client’s partner rather than just a mere vendor. This is what co-managed IT is all about. You need to learn how to effectively collaborate with your clients to provide transparency, ensure up-to-date documentation and build stronger relationships. By doing this, your clients will start viewing you as a profit center that is vital to their business growth.

Better marketing services

Better marketing was the need of the hour in 2021. With the increasing difficulty in acquiring new customers and finding the right client that fits their ideal customer profile, MSPs started investing in better marketing services that yielded valuable returns. Technology played a critical role in this aspect as well.

By using technology and strategies to read the behavior of potential clients, MSPs were able to place their services in front of buyers at the right time. Since face-to-face meetings have become challenging, this shift in marketing approach has become an extreme necessity. With better marketing strategies, MSPs were able to increase their numbers and sales.

A landmark year for the industry

All the ”good” we’ve listed above is expected to continue in the following years as well. The year 2021 will always be remembered as a transitionary year that enabled MSPs to quickly adapt and cater to the changing demands of the modern world.

However, not everything that happened this year yielded positive outcomes. MSPs also had their fair share of challenges, and these challenges brought new opportunities to the IT world. In our next blog in this series, we’ll discuss the downfalls and mistakes that resulted in significant learnings for MSPs. We will also touch upon the opportunities that lie ahead for them. Stay tuned!