The MSPAlliance welcomes a guest post from Stonesoft, Inc. (www.stonesoft.com), a global provider of network security solutions to MSSPs, enterprises and government organizations.
What will define the MSSP market in 2012? There have been a lot of predictions and, while it may be too early to tell, two things are certain: the MSSP market is only getting bigger, and customer demands are increasing.
Plenty has been written on the evolution and landscape of network security, but the real question isn’t “where have we been?” or “where are we going?” For MSSPs, the most pressing question today is “what do I need to do today to meet customer demands?”
Here are a few suggestions:
Think homogenous. If you have appliances from six different vendors, you’re setting yourself up for a network management, monitoring and reporting nightmare. On the flipside, a single vendor strategy may limit your capabilities. Find a happy medium and limit the number of vendors you work with to two or three. It will improve your service delivery, while increasing security for your customers.
Minimize incremental cost to serve. One of the most important questions you should be asking your vendors is “how does your solution make it easier for me to deliver strong security to more customers?” Like any business, security services must be scalable. Investing in solutions and tools that simplify network security delivery and management is a fast way to higher revenues.
Make security a transparent affair. Most companies want to keep a pulse on security, despite their decision to outsource to a third-party. In fact, certain compliance mandates require that companies be able to quickly and easily provide auditors with security information. For this reason, you should make it easy for your customers to view security performance across the network. It’s well within their rights to have a detailed view into their network at a moment’s notice, and bad for business to provide otherwise.
Get your customers involved. While some customers want to keep a pulse on security, others want to get their hands a bit dirtier – much to the dismay of many MSSPs. I challenge those MSSPs to answer this question: Is it better to have a customer that doesn’t pay attention to network security until a disaster comes along, or to have a customer that works with you when things are going right? If they’re asking to be involved, let them (and make it easy for them to do so). A collaborative approach to network security service delivery will help you create long-term customer relationships based on a shared concern.
By Matt McKinley, U.S. director of product development, Stonesoft
For more information: matt.mckinley@stonesoft.com mssp.stonesoft.com www.stonesoft.com
