From payroll and accounting to maintenance and marketing, there are plenty of ways savvy business leaders can reduce headaches, save money, and get better outcomes through outsourcing. When it comes to technology, this often means partnering with the right team. While you may already be working with a Managed Service Provider (MSP), it is increasingly important to ensure the safety of your business’s data and digital assets by working with a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP). Here’s what business leaders should know when it comes to MSP vs MSSP and how to build the best team.
What is a Managed Services Provider (MSP)?
A Managed Service Provider, or MSP, is there to manage and monitor the health of your business’s technology. This provider ensures that your company has what it needs to run smoothly. The work of an MSP affects both those inside and outside of the company. Your Managed Service Provider looks over your data and makes sure that it’s available and useful to both employees and customers who need it. When you have a problem accessing your data, or other technological issues, your MSP can work with you to make it right.
Your Managed Service Provider is focused mainly on technology administration. An MSP grants permissions to employees based on their roles and responsibilities, onboards new employees in your tech system, records and provides log data, and troubleshoots when there is an incident. They can also work closely with your company’s database manager to supply the training and support that they need to do their job well.
When a company implements a new application, an effective MSP can help minimize onboarding issues. When there are tech performance issues or usability problems, your MSP can step in and take care of the issue. In many companies, working with an MSP can reduce or eliminate the need for in-house IT staff making it a cost-effective option for small businesses.
Your MSP is an important part of your IT solutions. They can provide infrastructure, application, and network security support. But they aren’t the end-all-be-all for your technological needs. To keep your data safe and secure, you need to implement an MSSP as well.
MSP vs MSSP
While the job of an MSP is to make sure your company has all the IT assets, access, and services you need to succeed, an MSSP offers the protection around those assets. Another way to think of it is like a house. The MSP helps you build and maintain the house while the MSSP provides the fences, door locks, and security cameras to protect it.
An MSP can go a long way in making sure your employees can share data, use tech systems easily, and can get the data they need, an MSSP provides cybersecurity monitoring and management.
While an MSP is focused on usability and performance, an MSSP is focused on security. Your MSSP handles preventing, detecting, and responding to threats before they wreak havoc on your data. Sadly, data breaches are common today. According to the 2022 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, ransomware attacks increased 13% over the past year — a jump greater than the last 5 years combined. A breach can ruin a customer’s trust and a company’s reputation. It’s key for the success of your business that you keep your data protected from outside eyes.
For many businesses, it’s often not a case of choosing an MSP vs MSSP, but rather leveraging both types of providers to get the technical solutions and services needed with the least amount of friction.
One response to “MSP vs MSSP: What’s the Difference?”
Even if we do not talk about 5G (specifically), the security talent in general in the country is very sparse at the moment. We need to get more (security) professionals in the system.