Enterprises are increasingly relying on MSPs (Managed Service Providers) to thrive in today’s competitive market. From monitoring the IT infrastructure to securing business data, enterprises rely on MSPs for several reasons. With the help of a reliable MSP, enterprises can achieve operational efficiency. An MSP will ensure that the IT infrastructure of a client is healthy and free from anomalies. When the IT infrastructure is free from anomalies, the connected software systems and devices will also work efficiently. However, MSPs are facing several challenges due to the increasing complexity of IT infrastructures. Read on to understand MSP best practices in 2022.

1. Maintain service continuity

MSPs have to provide nonstop services to their clients. Let us say an organisation has partnered with an MSP to monitor the IT infrastructure. The organisation has partnered with the MSP to monitor the IT infrastructure at all times. The client will not like it if the MSP does not monitor the IT infrastructure round-the-clock. Managed IT services should be delivered at all times without any hassles. Discontinuous managed services might not please MSP clients. Because of discontinuous managed services, an enterprise might have to deal with downtime.

Besides providing services at all times, an MSP also has to focus on the quality of IT services. If there is a compromise in the quality of IT services, clients might prefer to take their business somewhere else. How do MSPs ensure service continuity to satisfy clients? Most MSPs have now shifted toward hyper-automation to meet client demands. With hyper-automation, MSPs can offer nonstop services to their clients. Automation technologies like AI and ML will perform basic tasks, even without human support. For example, an MSP can ensure round-the-clock monitoring of software systems with an AIOps-led monitoring solution.

2. Offer a centralised platform

Let us say an enterprise has partnered with an MSP for cybersecurity services. At the end of the day, the enterprise might like to see cybersecurity reports and insights. The MSP will provide the enterprise with an interface to view cybersecurity insights. The interface will display the number of software systems scanned throughout the day. The interface might help IT teams understand the vulnerabilities of software systems. However, the enterprise needs a unified interface that provides control across different environments. The enterprise might like to see all the cybersecurity insights on a single interface. Besides providing managed IT services, an MSP also has to offer enhanced visibility.

The idea is to create a unified interface that displays cybersecurity insights in one place. A client might not prefer to view cybersecurity insights on different platforms. The same goes for incident alerts within an organisation. The enterprise might want to view all IT incidents in one place. An MSP is responsible to provide its clients with a unified interface to view the entire IT infrastructure. With a unified interface, an enterprise will know the state of the IT infrastructure at all times. An AIOps-led tool is a single pane of glass solution that offers enhanced visibility. With an AIOps-led tool, IT teams will have everything they need in one place. From rich insights to actionable points, everything will be displayed by AIOps in one place.

3. Offer diverse managed services

In 2022, enterprises demand a wide range of managed IT services. An enterprise might not want to partner with different MSPs for monitoring and technical support. It might want a single MSP to offer both IT services. An enterprise does not want to have multiple software solutions from different vendors. By partnering with different service providers, an enterprise will spend more time understanding the software solutions. Not to forget, management and licensing hassles might arise due to different software solutions. MSP best practices are the key to business reliability.

To boost customer retention rate, an MSP should focus on providing a wide range of IT services. Monitoring, incident resolution, cybersecurity, event correlation, identity management, cloud services, and root cause analysis are a few important functions of an MSP. There are many other services demanded by MSP clients in this era of digitisation. When an MSP offers a wide range of services, it prevents the clients from partnering with any other service provider. An all-in-one technology like AIOps will help an MSP offer a wide range of services. With AIOps-led tools, an MSP will require minimal manual interference to provide a wide range of IT services.

4. Don’t fall into the commoditisation trap

Are you familiar with the commoditisation trap for MSPs? When different MSPs provide similar IT services, a customer cannot differentiate between them. It happens when MSPs do not have USPs (Unique Selling Points) and offer similar kinds of services. Let us say every MSP in a jurisdiction offers the same set of IT services. To be different, an MSP in that jurisdiction cannot do anything. The only option for the MSP is to reduce the price of service to stand out from others. Customers will also realise that all MSPs are offering the same services and might run to one with the lowest prices.

The above example is an ideal scenario of commoditisation for MSPs. The idea is to avoid the commoditisation trap and offer unique IT services. Be it cloud services or cybersecurity applications; an MSP should have some unique properties. AIOps-led platforms can help MSPs to stand out from others and offer unique IT services. With increasing digitisation, MSP clients are now done with traditional or age-old solutions.

5. Save time and effort for the client

In today’s era, MSPs do much more than offer traditional IT services like monitoring and incident resolution. MSPs are now focusing on ways to help enterprises save time and effort. MSP best practices include performing repetitive tasks for their clients. Enterprises spend much time doing redundant tasks. When an MSP completes cumbersome tasks, the enterprise might focus on core competencies. Automation technologies will help MSPs complete repetitive tasks with minimal human interference. Enterprises prefer MSPs that could help them save time, manual labour, money, and in-house resources. Adopt the best practices to become a reliable managed service provider in 2022!