As MSPmentor prepares the fourth-annual MSPmentor 100 survey and report, we’re also looking back at MSPs that landed on our previous MSPmentor 100 list. Stepping into today’s spotlight is Safe Systems. President Darren Bridges says that specializing exclusively in serving small banks and credit unions is exactly what propelled the company to spot 48 on our previous MSPmentor 100 list. Here’s how.

Bridges says that for the first 14 years of Safe Systems’ existence, they focused exclusively on break-fix services for the financial institutions within their customer base. About three years ago, though, Safe Systems shifted to a managed services model, providing specifically-focused offerings like compliance auditing or patch management to complement the traditional anti-virus and hosted messaging portfolio.

The thing that sets Safe Systems apart, to hear Bridges tell it, is that their 17 years worth of customer relationships has made them part of the financial industry — not just an outside contractor. Word of mouth spreads quickly in the banking community, Bridges says, and he and his team of 55 employees works hard at establishing themselves as trusted advisors with a handle on the specific needs of their businesses. It’s not an approach that’s for every MSP, he says, but it’s lucrative if you can pull it off.

For instance, Bridges says that the criteria for compliance testing changes every year to help ensure that bank network environments remain secure from evolving threat scenarios. Every time an auditor finds something, Bridges says, Safe Systems adds it to their cumulative knowledge and doesn’t just fix it for that bank – it fixes it for every network in their care.

As to the future, Bridges says that Safe Systems is going to hire 3 to 5 new employees in 2010 in light of their anticipated 15-18% percent year-over-year revenue growth. And to keep that momentum going, Safe Systems is going to be developing its cloud offerings, which already includes services like disaster recovery and off-site archiving, with the goal of expanding its geographic footprint – after all, remote offerings mean not having to send a tech.

This kind of laser-focus seems to be working for Safe Systems — keep an eye on MSPmentor for more as we watch their growth.

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