If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s that working remotely is not the future, it is here now. This approach is not new, but massive volumes of workers were essentially forced into working remote last year, and now that they’ve seen the light, the work landscape is forever changed. 

In this blog, we’ll cover a discussion between Mark Grundy of CorKat and ARRC’s Technology Senior Project Manager, Sawyer Snowden. Read the following as they discuss how managed service providers can take advantage of CorKat’s hosted server solutions with a purpose-built data center to support MSPs. 

Now that MSPs are supporting clients with employees working from home, the potential risks – not to mention frustrations – are numerous.  

Some clients connect to premise-based servers remotely, and some use VPNs. Performance is quite slow in many cases, and it’s impacting productivity depending on the complexity of the work. Thanks to today’s technology and greater bandwidth and speed, however, even virtual desktops can run 3D modeling in hosted environments.  

Another big issue right now is that potentially vulnerable PCs are connected to business servers. Some people working from home use family computers that are shared with children. There’s no telling what risky things other users have downloaded onto these machines. And when the compromised units connect to the company’s servers, those foreign threats can damage everything they touch.  

With hosted solutions, however, it doesn’t work that way. Any device with an internet connection can safely connect remotely in the cloud, and not directly through the network. And since you’re not passing data through your network, everything remains safe and secure. As working from home becomes the new norm, MSPs need to focus more on security than maintaining physical boxes. CorKat’s cloud solution is one of the safest choices you can make. 

A Perfect Storm of Need, Affordability, and Existing Infrastructure 

Although working remotely is not new from an MSP perspective, what has changed is that it’s more affordable than ever before. The cloud infrastructure is already in place, so we’re ahead of the game. According to Snowden, what we have is a “perfect storm” of need, affordability, and existing infrastructure.  

Some clients associate the term “cloud” with high costs, complexity, and inaccessibility, so reframing it with more descriptive and specific terms can help them better understand why it’s the best way forward.  

Snowden believes terms like “virtual office space” and “co-locating your data” can be useful. Grundy calls it “hosted services” or “hosted solutions” and says that most clients like the idea of moving sensitive data storage from their backroom to a secure data center. In fact, in his business, no client has ever wanted to go back to storing their data onsite. 

The SMB market that most MSPs support has been one of the last groups to transition to the cloud. While they might be slow to adapt to the new technology, if you don’t talk to your clients about it now, someone else will. Talk to them about the speed that technology changes and grows: in the future, there will only be more devices to support, and those who don’t get on board now will be left behind. That goes for SMBs as well as MSPs. 

MSPs Can Boost Efficiency 

Using these solutions also means MSPs can be more efficient as they’re spending less time on the physical hardware layer. Thanks to offerings like CorKat, MSP engineers can focus more on project work and face-to-face time. This allows you to be more engaged with clients and make their value clearer.  

You’ll also have more time to educate clients on how to use some of the features they are already paying for but not taking full advantage of. Get to know people and build relationships rather than just answering phones and emails. 

Business owners and employees alike have learned that they can work from home effectively, thanks to solutions like CorKat’s cloud. We may well see a lasting shift even when the day (hopefully) comes that COVID-19 is history. With cloud or hosted solutions, MSPs and their clients can take advantage of better security and performance not seen in traditional setups, freeing up your staff to work on tasks that drive revenue. 

From customer relations and marketing to sales, operations, HR, and finance, there are a lot of moving parts that go into achieving success as an MSP. Learn more about attracting clients, closing deals, raising recurring revenue, and much more from some of the biggest names in the industry at our next Academy.