With cybercrime on the rise, many organizations are looking for ways to improve their security by outsourcing. This is creating great opportunities for managed service providers (MSPs) who can offer comprehensive security solutions. A recent study by Foundry found that 90% of the security leaders feel they are falling short in addressing cyber risk due to which 49% of them plan to outsource their security functions more than ever.
What SMBs and enterprises expect from MSPs
Preparedness, security, and awareness are the top security priorities that security executives have for the next 12 months. To cater to the security requirements of SMBs and enterprises, MSPs must be able to do the following.
- Enable the organization to be better prepared to respond to any unexpected security incident.
- Able to protect sensitive and confidential data from data breaches and theft.
- Improve end-users security awareness through training.
- Upgrade IT and data security to amplify corporate resiliency.
Security leaders are evaluating a range of security tools and solutions capable of mitigating security risks. Zero trust is the most popular choice among organizations as 52% of organizations are currently researching or piloting the technology while 21% are using zero trust. Another 25% of security leaders are planning to adopt zero trust in the next 12 months.
Organizations are increasing their budgets to address their cybersecurity concerns. SMBs plan to double their spending on average, from $5.5 million in 2021 to $11 million in 2022. Enterprises will budget an average of $123 million on security in the coming year. Foundry expects that by 2022, 21% of organizations surveyed will have fully outsourced their security functions.
Summary: Ransomware, zero-day attacks, third-party breaches, long-term remote work concerns, and the integration of operational technology with IT systems have created a lack of confidence among IT security leaders. More IT leaders believe that it is easier and safer to leave security in the hands of the experts. While almost half of the organizations already or will outsource some of their IT security functions an additional 13% will outsource all their IT security functions over the next 12 months. This can be an opportunity for MSPs looking to scale their businesses.
Also read: The managed services market to grow at 7.9% CAGR and reach USD 354.8 billion by 2026
