As MSPs, cybersecurity is at the core of everything we do. From ransomware attacks to phishing scams and zero-day vulnerabilities, the threats are relentless. It’s easy to assume that cybersecurity is what matters most to our clients because it’s such a dominant part of our world.
But what if that assumption isn’t entirely accurate?
At our MSP, we decided to challenge that assumption. Inspired by the book Uncommon Service by Frances Frei, we conducted a survey (Attribute Map Exercise), asking our clients to rank their top priorities when it comes to IT. The results were eye-opening: while cybersecurity ranked highly, productivity emerged as their number one priority.
Productivity: The Real Driver of Value
This insight forced us to take a step back and re-evaluate. While cybersecurity remains a top priority, we realized we may have been so focused on it that we overlooked an equally important goal: really enabling our clients to be more productive. Cybersecurity plays a key role in enabling productivity, but it’s not the ultimate goal.
A Shift in Focus
With this new perspective, we’ve realigned our focus to prioritize productivity across all aspects of our services. This doesn’t mean cybersecurity is taking a back seat—it’s still foundational to everything we do and a company value. But we’re now committed to helping our clients work smarter, not just safer.
Here are some of the initiatives we’re rolling out to bring productivity to the forefront:
• Mastering the Basics: Continuously improving response times and refining our processes to ensure seamless support.
- Mastering the Basics: Continuously improving response times and refining our processes to ensure seamless support.
- Enhanced User Onboarding: Educating new users about the tools available to them and how to maximize their efficiency.
- Maximizing Microsoft 365: Ensuring clients take full advantage of its features for collaboration, automation, and workflow improvements.
- Introducing AI Tools: Helping clients leverage AI solutions to streamline tasks and enhance decision-making.
- Power Automate Solutions: Assisting clients with automations to simplify repetitive processes and save time.
vCIOs: The Key to Unlocking Productivity
Our vCIOs play a central role in identifying opportunities to improve productivity. This all starts with the strategic alignment session, where vCIOs engage with clients to dig into their business objectives and evaluate how they are using technology.
These sessions go beyond surface-level discussions to uncover challenges, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities. By aligning technology with the client’s goals, vCIOs can create a roadmap that drives measurable improvements in productivity.
Download our Strategic Alignment Session cheat sheet!
What About Your MSP?
Has your focus on cybersecurity blinded you to other client priorities? Conducting the attribute-ranking exercise from Uncommon Service was a game-changer for us. It allowed us to better understand what matters most to our clients and realign our services accordingly.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you reading the book and trying it for yourself. You might be surprised by what your clients truly value!
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Simon is the President of S3 Technologies, a leading Canadian MSP he co-founded in 2003. He built and scaled the vCIO team which eventually lead to him co-founding Propel Your MSP in 2018 to help MSPs with their vCIO services.
