Barracuda MSP Industry and Tech Blog

Your website is one of your most important assets for lead generation and introducing new clients to your managed service offering. That’s why search engine optimization (SEO) has become a priority for businesses. In fact, 93 percent of all web traffic comes in from a search engine, making it imperative for managed service businesses to invest time and resources into improving their rankings.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations want to maximize uptime, and as a result MSPs are looking for image-based solutions that help them offer customers fast business recovery capabilities. That’s why we’re excited about Physical Imaging Standard to Cloud for Intronis Backup.

Productivity is important, especially when you’re trying to run a profitable MSP business. However, many different activities can derail your staff from being as productive as they could be—and they aren’t alone. A  recent study found that out of an eight hour workday, the average worker is  productive for only a little under three hours.

Unhappy customers can be the canary in the coal mine because often their complaint isn’t unique. In fact, for every customer who brings up a complaint, there are 26 who remain silent. Instead of waiting for these unhappy customers to come to you, you need to regularly seek customer feedback on how your IT service business is suiting their needs.

Disasters happen. Whether it’s a flood, a ransomware attack, a failed hard drive, or a careless employee that accidentally deletes large amounts of data, nightmare scenarios can strike a small business at any time. But those stories don’t have to end with data loss.

As more SMBs embrace the benefits of the public cloud, IT services providers are facing a new set of challenges. One of these challenges is transitioning from protecting on-premises environments to securing data and applications in the cloud— while avoiding common pitfalls along the way.

A recent survey of more than 600 IT decision makers by Dimensional Research and Barracuda explored the concerns many IT professionals have about cloud security. In an announcement about the study, Tim Jefferson, VP public cloud, Barracuda, shared the following insight:

We understand that keeping up with security requirements can prove stressful, especially with increasingly sophisticated attackers breathing down your neck (and your customers’).

However, according to a report by The 2112 Group on behalf of Barracuda MSP, entitled The State of European Managed Services, many of you are still just offering a basic level of security services. With the rise of ransomware and new data legislation right around the corner, there has never been a better time for you to offer a more robust security solution for your customers.

We live in a password paradox. Passwords are designed to keep confidential accounts and information safe, but the number of passwords created per employee (Every employee has an average of 27 passwords.) creates more opportunities for those passwords to be exposed. Password theft can be quite lucrative, depending on the sensitivity of the exposed account. 

Backup is often to unsung hero of the IT channel. When data backup goes right, your customers barely notice that there was a problem. All they know is that you kept them up and running. They don't realize that you and your team just averted a major disaster without breaking a sweat.

That's why we invited our MSP partners to share their favorite #backupwin on Twitter to help celebrate World Backup Day, which is coming up on March 31.

If you let small business customers pick and choose the IT services they want, they’ll often miss critical services, such as cloud backup, that they need to keep their data safe. One way to address this concern and make sure all your customers have appropriate coverage is to bundle a cloud backup service like Intronis Backup into your standard offering.