Why MSPs Should (and Can!) Deliver IT Governance Solutions

Post Date: 03/18/2021
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Managed service providers know that their jobs involve a lot more than simply “keeping the lights on” to meet customers’ basic IT needs. MSPs are also expected to provide services and solutions that optimize a customer’s Microsoft 365 adoption, maximize user collaboration and productivity, and guard against new cyberthreats, data sprawl, and data leakage.

I have covered some of the ways that AvePoint can support the evolving duties of MSPs in recent blog posts. These topics include:

The third piece of the pie for MSPs? Governance.

In this context, governance is the act of setting defined processes and user permissions for safe and efficient IT use. As we continue working remotely and with a heavier reliance on collaboration platforms, it’s more important than ever to ensure that settings for access, file sharing, and channel creation are appropriately tailored for each industry, each company, and each user.

With AvePoint’s Policies & Insights solution (PI for short), MSPs can do just that in a very “lightweight” and easy-to-manage manner.

That’s because PI makes it easy to find, prioritize, fix, and enforce your Microsoft 365 controls. As a result, IT governance becomes an easy and agile productivity enabler — and it can empower MSPs to add value that boosts customer loyalty and monthly recurring revenue.

AvePoint Can Bypass Your IT Governance Roadblocks

The term “governance” has historically been off-putting to employees, and it may conjure up images of dusty rooms full of file folders.

Some organizations may have scaled back or even discontinued their policies to encourage wider adoption of collaboration tools only to discover a barrage of fires for IT teams to put out and vulnerabilities exposing the customer to all kinds of risks.

Those scenarios aren’t just a nuisance. They eat up time and money and create risks for data leaks. Remember, 92% of security data incidents are unintentional, and accidental exposure is the biggest source of data leakage.

Shifting the notion of governance from vague recommended guidelines to the deployment of an integrated, user-friendly framework can position organizations for near-term continuity and strong future growth. It also gives them peace of mind and bandwidth to focus on their work.

But this is easier said than done. After all, your customers probably aren’t prepared to build and implement their own governance model. More than ever, they need partners fully equipped to course-correct and accommodate a spectrum of needs.

This is where AvePoint can help.

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Develop a Personalized Security Solution to Build Value and Profit

With our Policies & Insights solution, MSPs can drill down into critical security questions about Teams, Groups, Sites, and OneDrive for Business to develop effective, targeted solutions for their clients.

You can even use our PI solution to develop (and charge for) your own collaboration and security services for clients. Talk about personalized service!

Even better, each game plan is personalized. You get to define what risk means to you and your customer; just select the regulations or permissions controls that are a priority, and we’ll do the rest.

PI allows you to tailor security via policies that automatically enforce protocols such as labels, ownership restrictions, and security settings. Additional reporting dashboards allow you to easily digest what’s going on in your environment and visualize how the solution is making collaboration more secure.

MSPs have no shortage of challenges in their roles as trusted advisers and “outsourced IT departments” for customers, especially now. By providing AvePoint solutions such as PI, you bring the power to collaborate with confidence and reaffirm your value as a trusted partner worth every penny. It’s a win for everyone.


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Jason is the former Senior Vice President of Global Channel & Partner Ecosystems at AvePoint.

View all posts by Jason Beal
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