The Top 10 Benefits of Integrating Cybersecurity Awareness Training and Testing into Your MSP Offering

Introduction:

As a Managed Service Provider (MSP), your main aim is to enhance your clients’ operational efficiency and protect their valuable assets, namely their data and IT systems. In addition, to keep your clients happy year after year, you must provide consistent, demonstrable value not just to the business, but also to its employees.  This is where adding cybersecurity awareness training and testing into your MSP offering adds enormous value to your client relationships.

The unfortunate truth is that despite its importance, cybersecurity education in our schools and most businesses continues to be a missing element. This gap leaves businesses vulnerable to common attacks. These attacks include ransomware, business email compromise, wire fraud, social engineering, and so much more! The rapidly evolving landscape of cyber threats and the increasing sophistication of cyber-attacks underscores the necessity of cybersecurity awareness training and phishing tests for all MSP clients.

Top 10 Benefits of Awareness Training and Phish Testing

So, how does embedding cybersecurity awareness training into your default managed services offering benefit your business, its clients, and all employees? Let’s delve into the top 10 benefits that add demonstrable value to your MSP, your clients, and your employees.

1. Greatly Improved Client Relationship Value: By offering cybersecurity awareness training, you equip your clients with vital skills to protect their data and systems. This not only enhances their security posture but also instills confidence in your services, fostering trust, and improving the overall value of your client relationships.
2. Lower Cost of Client Support: When clients are educated on identifying and preventing cyber threats, the frequency of security-related incidents reduces, and so does the financial burden associated with client support.
3. Fewer Costly Security Incidents: Training leads to heightened awareness of potential cyber threats and more robust defense strategies, drastically reducing the number of costly security incidents that most often happen on nights and weekends.
4. Better MSP Employee Work-Life Balance: Less after-hours incident responses equate to better work-life balance for your team, reducing stress and burnout, and boosting overall job satisfaction, loyalty, and a desire to stay with an MSP that really cares about its staff.
5. More Productive and Secure End Users: An informed user is a secure user. By making cybersecurity training a standard part of your offering, you help create an environment of informed users who can confidently, efficiently, and securely use their IT systems, increasing overall productivity.
6. Better Client Retention: An MSP that proactively provides cybersecurity training is perceived as going the extra mile. Such proactive behavior can enhance your reputation, leading to improved client satisfaction and retention.
7. Fewer Support Issues: With cybersecurity training, clients will be more equipped to handle minor issues independently, thus reducing the number of support issues your team has to handle. MSP Owner: “With assignment-based Phish Testing, as opposed to attack-based phish testing, the number of “Is this a phish?” emails to support were reduced dramatically.  The difference was incredible!“
8. Lower Cost Per Client to Support Them: When support issues and security incidents decrease, the cost of supporting each client will consequently go down, improving your profit margins while also improving client satisfaction with your services.
9. Cyber Insurance Compliance for Clients: Many cyber insurance policies require businesses to demonstrate commitment to cybersecurity best practices, including awareness training and phish testing. By offering this, you assist your clients in achieving compliance possibly even saving them money on insurance renewals.
10. Regulatory Compliance: Cybersecurity regulations like GDPR and HIPAA require businesses to train their staff in data protection. Embedding cybersecurity training in your services ensures your clients are not just protected but also compliant.

Despite the alarming rise in cyber threats, the solution to fortifying your clients’ cybersecurity defense is relatively simple and affordable. By incorporating cybersecurity awareness training and phishing simulations into your default managed services offering, you are in a position to help your clients combat the increasing sophistication and frequency of cyber attacks.