Should you implement BCDR in your MSP service stack?

Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) is a contradiction for many managed service providers (MSPs). While it can increase margins dramatically, it can also come with its own set of challenges. MSPs often have to manage multiple backup vendors, which can add to the overhead of their technical team and take away time from more valuable tasks, such as working with prospects and customers. On top of that, techs don’t typically enjoy the additional work of dealing with alerts at midnight and on weekends. However, BCDR can also be a hero if and when the worst-case scenario happens with a client.

Figure 1: The pros and cons of BCDR

Challenges with scaling BCDR solutions

Managing all of the solutions your clients require can be challenging, particularly for MSPs who work with many vendors. Each vendor can increase overhead and costs, impacting growth. But the key to making your BCDR offering, or offerings rather, work for you and achieving high-quality growth and flexibility comes from minimizing technical complexity. Simplifying your tech stack not only enables great customer and employee experiences, retention, and referrals—it also improves sales confidence, better aligns you with your target customer profile (TCP), and allows you to employ fewer, lower-cost people.

High-performing MSPs get tech standards in place right away and leverage vendors who offer a unified toolset rather than trying to integrate tools from the ground up themselves. Many MSPs have the desire to reach critical mass with their revenue and then focus on the ability to streamline and improve margins. But this is the inverse of what most successful MSPs do.

High-profit, high-growth MSPs tend to perfect their offering and delivery, then invest more of their bottom line to scaling without sacrificing margins. These MSPs also tend to partner with fewer vendors and create deeper relationships with those chosen few. Each new solution or service they add to their portfolio has a business plan vetted by the company leaders—giving them increased scale, efficiency, and flexibility.

How to scale your BCDR offering without tech burnout

Do you struggle to find the full-time employees (FTEs) you need or keep existing FTEs from burning out? If so, you’re certainly not alone. Scaling with FTEs can be a time-consuming and costly process, which is why so many MSPs strategically create their tech stack with expert services.

ConnectWise offers a unique approach to expert services. It’s up to you and your business how involved you’d like to be—some services are do-it-yourself (DIY), some are done-with-you (DWY), and others can be done-for-you (DFY). Trying to do it all yourself places an unnecessary burden on both you and your employees, which can quickly lead to burnout. This burden is what we hope to alleviate with ConnectWise Expert Services. In Figure 2, you can see in greater detail the services ConnectWise provides, and who the responsibility falls to depending on the approach you choose.

Figure 2: DIY vs. DWY Integrated Expert Services

The ConnectWise advantage: Bundling RMM, BCDR, and NOC

Supporting backups takes a special set of skills, and finding techs to manage even one solution is hard, let alone finding techs to manage many. ConnectWise NOC Services™ have you covered with 24/7/365 support, and techs who are trained and certified to support popular backup solutions and take the day-to-day tasks off your techs’ plates. Enjoy the peace of mind that comes from a backup solution you can rely on, and take even more of the burden off your team when you pair your NOC Services with ConnectWise RMM and one or more of the many BCDR solutions from ConnectWise—all of which are available on the ConnectWise Asio platform.

Figure 3: BCDR Solutions from ConnectWise

The benefits of ConnectWise Asio for MSPs

Managed service providers (MSPs) must keep up with ever-changing technology to stay competitive and deliver the best services to their customers. The ConnectWise Asio platform™ is designed to deliver unified monitoring and management of IT services, making it easier for MSPs to meet customer demands and provide the best services possible. Asio also has a unified user interface that allows MSPs to manage endpoints, see multiple products at once, and take advantage of native integrations like Acronis and Veeam for BCDR and other cybersecurity solutions. The Asio platform is an invaluable resource for service providers and executives alike, providing an efficient and cost-effective way to manage IT services.