After MSPWorld's keynote address by FBI special agent Brent Watkins, many MSPs may be wondering how they can become more engaged and relevant in protecting their customers. One of the ways MSPs can become more relevant to their customers is by helping businesses understand their own data. What do I mean by "understand" data? Let's take a look at some of the more common approaches for MSPs to help customers with data analysis and management.
Data Review
Whether conducted as a stand alone engagement or as part of a larger business continuity or disaster recovery project, most organizations (particularly small & medium businesses) have never analyzed their own data. You may say, 'why does data need to be analyzed?' Data, unlike 20 years ago, is now a valuable asset to most organizations. It's also a valuable target for cyber criminals and hackers.
The old way of approaching security used to be protecting the device. Now, difference data has different value to different people. Understanding what data your organization has and knowing how to protect it is the primary challenge for many entities today.
Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery
Disastrous events can teach us a lot. Hurricane Katrina taught us the importance of keeping backup data in geographically redundant areas. If you've never been through a disaster you may not know how it could impact your business. For this reason alone, MSPs should be conducting at least annual BC and DR planning and drills to simulate events that could seriously disrupt a customer's ongoing affairs. A huge part of a DR/BC plan is knowing the types of data you have and how that data would impact your business.
BYOD Policies
Today, employees almost demand the ability to bring non-approved devices and clouds into the corporate environment. Gone are the days when IT departments would enforce a strict list of approved devices. IT departments today are happy just to keep up with their users changing habits. Developing a BYOD policy is a critical element to safeguarding your corporate data. Because BYOD no longer is just about the device, you now have third party cloud environments penetrating the corporate network allowing business data to escape into unknown areas.
Yet again, knowoing what types of data you have and developing BYOD policies to accommodate those data sets is something every MSP should be contemplating.
There are obviously many paths to developing data analysis solutions for customers. The imporant takeaway for MSPs is that data analysis can be a powerful tool for developing a deeper and more intimate relationship with customers.
