Solution architects: How many Microsoft 365 tools do MSPs really need?

A common misconception is that having more services and solutions equates to higher profits. But the saying “too much of anything is a bad thing” is true. Every client has unique needs, making many products from various vendors necessary to achieve protection. But as the vendor list grows longer and the costs to implement, operate and manage all these tools eat into margins, this can counteract growth.

When it comes to Microsoft 365, multiple services and solutions are required to deliver adequate protection. The predominant challenges include securing email and apps, managing security posture, integrating with XDR, training users for security awareness, and backing up data and preserving data in archives for compliance. Until now, this involved using multiple vendors that perpetuated more issues.

Dealing with a wide range of Microsoft 365-focused tools and vendors is a significant burden that complicates the process of onboarding each new user and client. Take into consideration that there is an onboarding cycle for each product and the process repeats every time users come and go — and as clients phase in and out.

The responsibility of sizing a managed service provider’s (MSP) bill of materials and estimating service hours is getting harder. Factors such as complexity, cost and time affect the client experience, and with so many variables, the challenge of designing an optimal service offering is less clear with countless moving parts and nuances. Keeping track of profit and loss also becomes a headache when operating expenses are unpredictable and can start to outweigh revenue.

Consider the implications across other MSP functions, including:

The most glaring problem is that running individual Microsoft 365-focused services is difficult to manage. Inefficiencies arise when technicians and IT administrators have to juggle a handful of dashboards per client while monitoring and ensuring that everything runs smoothly. Technicians and IT administrators are likely managing passwords and login credentials for half a dozen panels per client. If there are any issues, clients will raise tickets, and the solution might require a multitude of expensive integrations. Admins then need to switch between various consoles to diagnose and ultimately remediate the issues — interruptions that are both time consuming and disorienting.

Licensing, pricing and vendor management are all on the business management side, which is a critical issue. Offering services that align product pricing models with backend needs is an art. But the bigger obstacle is forecasting how much time, resources and expertise will be spent across MSP clients. On one hand, uncertainty surrounding the scope corners MSPs into two pricing situations: accounting for the worst-case scenario with excess pricing that they cannot widely sell or settling for a minimum scope and charging a lot of overages. On the other hand, MSPs who refrain from charging overages or absorb the charges accumulated by a client’s unexpected, billed hours end up creating billing and revenue leakage.

Another disadvantage of protecting Microsoft 365 with multiple tools is that it creates an inconsistent service quality experience for clients. Disparate tools from different vendors makes it challenging to predict how much time, resources and effort will be spent from client to client. These irregularities cause clients to have varying experiences that can take a hit on an MSP total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI).

Microsoft 365 is still a golden opportunity if MSP solution architects and business leaders carefully strategize their service offering. According to Amy Hood, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Microsoft’s Q2 2024 revenue, driven by record bookings and Microsoft Cloud, was $36.8 billion, up by 21% year over year.

With more businesses using Microsoft 365, more protection is needed. In fact, Microsoft’s shared responsibility model states that customers share in the responsibility of protecting information and data, devices, accounts and identities and access when using Microsoft in the cloud. The bottom line is that MSP clients are responsible and, consequently, it is the MSP’s responsibility.

Microsoft 365 is the long-term, money-making opportunity for strategically minded MSPs, so long as they minimize costs, IT headaches and resource consumption in their operations. To accomplish this, it’s critical that solution architects and MSP leaders curate technology stacks thoughtfully.

Bridging the gap between client needs and the technologies MSPs use to drive Microsoft 365-based services is typically a challenge requiring a meticulous approach. However, many MSPs tend to turn to cybersecurity and data protection vendors who are shifting to a consolidated approach. This enables MSPs to deploy and manage Microsoft 365-focused services more easily. And, by consolidating their technology stack, MSPs can accomplish more IT tasks with fewer solutions, IT headaches and upfront expenses.

In McKinsey Digital’s Technology Trends Outlook 2024, Martin Harrysson, senior partner, Bay Area, adds, “The future of tooling is likely to see consolidation over time, with companies opting for several comprehensive tools or tool chains instead of numerous specialized ones.” It is clear the trend is transforming the way SaaS and IT leaders evaluate solutions.

The benefits of vendor consolidation are both across cost and operational efficiency. It can help  identify redundancies and reduce training time. By far, the greatest advantage is being able to manage everything in one console.

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud natively integrates and centralizes cybersecurity, data protection and endpoint management for MSPs. Why is native integration noteworthy? Gaidar Magdanurov, President of Acronis, explained in a recent Channext podcast that Acronis advocates for native integration because the approach joins cybersecurity, data protection, remote management and service automation together. The vision: deliver a single agent, single console and single platform where MSPs manage everything.

When it comes to protecting Microsoft 365, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud offers robust solutions including Microsoft security, backup and recovery, and email archiving. An MSP-first solution ecosystem empowers MSPs with comprehensive, yet simple solutions to deliver highly efficient services, and also help clients with their compliance and cyber insurance requirements. The pressure to meet these increasingly strict compliance and insurance mandates looms large over businesses. Traditional antivirus and anti-malware are insufficient remedies, so auditors have raised the bar by expanding their expectations across the entirety of IT environments.

Additionally, MSPs can carry out unique tasks such as scanning backups for malware, detecting threats that are traditionally hard to find in a production environment, removing malware from backups and performing recovery — all in the same console. And, by unifying Microsoft 365 protection in one place, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud helps MSPs deliver enhanced value to clients.