IT Nation Secure: A Lot More Coming to ConnectWise's Asio Platform for MSPs
MSPs are addressing their SMB clients' most pressing security needs.
![IT Nation Secure IT Nation Secure](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt25b999b723944ffc/6523f79d649a26b7257bd6a7/Con1-2-scaled.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
ConnectWise uses a variety of ways to gain feedback from partners for use when developing its solutions, said CTO Raghu Bongula.
“We have always looked at partners as an extension of our company,” he said. “The first thing is we have many advisory councils, we have an advisory council for the company and we do have a security-specific advisory council where there are partners who can be part of the process, who can guide us in the road map, what we have in the road map and what we are planning to build.”
ConnectWise also provides early access to select partners “every time we are coming up with an idea,” Bongula said. They then provide feedback that leads to continuous improvement.
“And we do have communities like MSP Geek, who on a monthly basis meet with us to give feedback, saying where they see the direction, what’s happening, what we should change and things like that,” he said. “Along with that, all of our executives have partner cohorts. We are assigned a group of partners where we meet them every month.”
In many cases, MSPs might not know everything that’s available to them from ConnectWise that can make their lives easier, Bongula said.
“I think that’s where all of these forums help us to kind of educate them and walk them through saying what is possible and they can look at uniquely their business and say this is what l like,” he said “As an example, some MSPs might be focused on insurance customers. Some of them might be focusing on government customers. We can say since you’re in the government sector, this is something which will help you out of the bag. So we do that, our partner success team is solely focused on that.”
MSPs no longer have a choice in focusing on cybersecurity for themselves and their customers, Bongula said.
“I don’t think it is a possibility anymore of not doing anything,” he said. “It’s just too risky. And the attack vectors have become more and more complex because of the fact that it’s almost like a cat-and-mouse game. They try to run, you try to catch them, they try to run faster and you try to catch faster. Now if someone doesn’t have anything, they are so easily vulnerable that they can get compromised very quickly.”
For MSPs, it might look like an additional cost, but “it’s more of those things of short-term gain versus long-term pain,” Bongula said.
“Once you lose reputation, especially in security, it’s really tough to bring back your reputation,” he said. “It takes years to build reputation and you don’t want to lose it with a security event. So it goes back to the five life cycle events, You need to cover all those five aspects. If you don’t cover that, it’s just a matter of time until you’re going to get exposed. It’s not about if, it’s about when. There is always a chance that even after doing this, something could happen. But that being said, by being proactive and being up to date, we can generally win the fight.”
A big topic at IT Nation Secure is MSPs/TSPs helping SMBs shore up their cybersecurity. James Cockrell, virtual CIO at Technology Associates, a North Carolina-based MSP, said his company focuses on SMBs, “guiding them in the right direction, providing strategic value, and letting them know what risks are real and what risks aren’t.”
He said SMBs’ most-pressing need is understanding what risks are out there.
“A lot of people, you hear about the boogeyman, but you have to explain the risks and let them know what’s real and where we can eliminate risk,” he said.
Eric Bednar, director of managed IT services at Dex Imaging, a Florida-based MSP, said SMB is a big part of the space it operates in.
“In my perspective and my experience, a lot of SMB owners are just not up to date on the threat landscape, seeing as how it’s evolving,” he said. “They don’t know what they don’t know. And so part of my job is to gather this information of what’s new and trending, and evolving, and not just take that back to my internal stakeholders, but to then take that back to the owners of the SMBs that I protect and support so that they understand that I’m not just bringing some flashy new product to them, that this is the standard moving forward of being able to protect your business from these threats that have the ability to bring everything to a screeching halt, to be able to really just impair a business or in the case of some SMBs completely shut them down. So we want to ensure that our SMB clients are best protected. But we also want them to stay relevant and informed on the topic so that when we have these discussions with them that it’s not coming out of left field or anything like that.”
Nikko Pabion, director of technology at WheelHouse IT, a national MSP, said his company is mainly focused on supporting and securing SMBs. He said the biggest challenge for SMBs now is “just them not knowing what to do because when you mention security; it could be anything from the doors and the locks on the doors, to not having multifactor authentication (MFA) or not having the right antivirus (AV).”
Pabion said when it comes to convincing SMBs to do what they need to do to protect themselves, “it always comes down to the relationship that you have with the customer.”
“If you are a trusted partner for that customer, then yes, everything will be a lot easier, they will trust you,” he said. “They know that you’re not just trying to go in there and sell a product just because you can, versus if you have a bad relationship with the customer. The sell is a lot harder and they may not trust you, believe you, going back and forth. It really comes down to that trust between you and the customer.”
Nicole Darter, cyber catalyst/client advocate at iTrust-IT, a Texas-based MSP, said her company works with a lot of SMBs and some larger manufacturing. She said education is the best way to approach with SMBs because “people don’t know where they’re vulnerable.”
“They don’t know what options are out there for them,” she said. “They’re not the experts. And so it’s important for us to be able to educate them on what they need and kind of be there empathetically for their business.”
All four MSPs vary in terms of where they are on their cybersecurity journey.
“I feel like it’s always a moving target so I would like to get a lot better than where we are,” Pabion said. “But overall, I think we’re doing pretty well.”
“We’re fairly mature in our cybersecurity journey,” Cockrell said. “I really just wanted to kind of connect with the community, hear what other MSPs are doing or what they’ve done, what’s successful and what’s not. That way we can just collaborate and really kind of see where we stack up.”
Nicole Darter, cyber catalyst/client advocate at iTrust-IT, a Texas-based MSP, said her company works with a lot of SMBs and some larger manufacturing. She said education is the best way to approach with SMBs because “people don’t know where they’re vulnerable.”
“They don’t know what options are out there for them,” she said. “They’re not the experts. And so it’s important for us to be able to educate them on what they need and kind of be there empathetically for their business.”
All four MSPs vary in terms of where they are on their cybersecurity journey.
“I feel like it’s always a moving target so I would like to get a lot better than where we are,” Pabion said. “But overall, I think we’re doing pretty well.”
“We’re fairly mature in our cybersecurity journey,” Cockrell said. “I really just wanted to kind of connect with the community, hear what other MSPs are doing or what they’ve done, what’s successful and what’s not. That way we can just collaborate and really kind of see where we stack up.”
What ConnectWise has done with cybersecurity on its Asio platform is just the beginning with more capabilities arriving in the coming months.
That’s according to Raghu Bongula, ConnectWise’s CTO. We spoke with him during day two of IT Nation Secure. ConnectWise announced numerous enhancements and innovations powered by its Asio platform.
ConnectWise’s Raghu Bongula
“We have launched some of the security products on the Asio platform and we have gotten a lot of good feedback, a lot of customer satisfaction has improved overall just because of the fact that you’re building something new,” he said. “Looking at today’s technology and today’s opportunities, it’s obviously much better than what you had like four years ago, five years ago. Similarly, we are rewriting business management solutions (BMS) into Asio, so we have plans to launch that sometime this year, hopefully by the time we come and meet next time. So we are serious on that.”
Asio Platform Making MSPs More Efficient
ConnectWise is working on finishing the Asio platform in the coming months, Bongula said.
“When I say finishing off the platform, adding more and more new functionality to the platform,” he said. “We have been very busy with artificial intelligence (AI) and looking at the life cycle of an MSP and the life cycle of a small business to see what they do, how we can improve and make them more efficient.”
ConnectWise has already released multiple tools on Asio, but “that number is going to go up way up by end of this year, Bongula said.
“So the thinking is, OK, if an MSP spends let’s say five hours doing something, what can we do to … reduce that time?” he said. “Can we take advantage of AI? And how would it help? So that has been like a huge focus inside of the company. So you will see more and more in that space throughout the year.”
The standard cybersecurity life cycle includes identify, protect, detect, respond and recover, Bongula said.
“As an MSP, I think they need to make sure that they have tools, either through ConnectWise or someone else, to solve all those aspects of security life cycle,” he said. “So we as ConnectWise, we provide tools for each of those and also services for each of those.”
Scroll through our slideshow above for more from day two of IT Nation Secure.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Edward Gately or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
Read more about:
MSPsAbout the Author(s)
You May Also Like