Guest Contributors

1. 5 Reasons Why Risk Assessments Should Be A Consistent Part Of Your Operational Strategy 1/17/2020

   As your business evolves, the factors that pose security risks are everchanging—which means your defense strategy can rapidly become outdated and ineffective. Risk assessments provide a snapshot of the internal and external factors that threaten your business—and your customers—at a given point in time. Since risk factors are volatile, managed service providers (MSPs) need to perform security risk assessments on a regular basis to stay on top of threats as they emerge or evolve.

2. The Math Behind Successful As-A-Service: Understanding And Calculating Churn 1/17/2020

   Sometimes referred to as attrition or turnover, churn is your number of customers at the beginning of a period minus your number of customers at the end. It calculates the overall difference but excludes any new sales over that period. Customer churn can include cancellations, non-renewals, or customers switching to another provider.

3. Optimize Your Tech Stack To Achieve Unprecedented Success In 2020 1/17/2020

   With 2020 on the horizon, it’s time to prepare in every way possible to set your business up for success in the coming year. And in today’s world, driving improvement at scale is all about leveraging the best technology available—whether that means refining, updating, or completely revamping your technology stack.

4. Enhancing Network Security Through Visibility 1/17/2020

   As a technology services provider (TSP), your customers have put their trust in you–the expert– when it comes to managing and securing their network. And considering the increasing rise of B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications as the critical driver in business, the network is integral in the day-to-day life of your customers’ businesses.

5. Foresight Is 2020: Predictions For The Coming Year 1/6/2020

   January brings with it new hope and new energy, but before you chart a course for the year, it’s always good to see which way the winds are blowing.

6. How To: Naming Conventions For Documentation 1/6/2020

   Consistent naming conventions are crucial to getting the most out of your documentation. With strong naming conventions, you’ll be able to find documents efficiently, avoid creating duplicate documents, and easily understand the contents of a document without having to click into it. It’s important to get naming conventions correct early on to avoid having to go back and update a bunch of documents later. Remember, naming conventions are all about utility; once the system is learned, anybody should be able to interpret the document name accurately.

7. How To Develop A Team That Can Self Serve 1/6/2020

   When your team is operating like a finely-tuned machine, with little intervention on your part, you’re positioned for growth. Your leadership team - from the CEO down to the senior techs - have more time to focus on growth activities when the rest of the team is running itself. But it’s easier to say than to do, so let’s go over a few pointers on how to get your team to a point where they self-serve.

8. Top Metrics For MSPs In 2020 1/6/2020

   The New Year is arguably an arbitrary dividing point for making personal resolutions, but for a business whose financial year ends and begins at this point, there’s a strong rationale for setting goals and implementing positive changes. Accurate year-over-year business performance comparison is then possible, giving an apples-to-apples look at whether the changes you made for 2020 worked for you. I can’t tell you what your business goals for the New Year should be, but what I can do is highlight some useful metrics that will help pinpoint problem areas and measure improvement. Here they are, logically categorized, and offered for your benefit.

9. Cybersecurity Predictions For 2020: What Our Experts Have To Say 12/23/2019

   As the year draws to a close, the cybersecurity analysts at Webroot and Carbonite pull out their crystal balls to make their predictions for the year ahead.  Our experts predict many of the trends they’ve been tracking throughout the year—well-researched attacks, RDP compromise, and the importance of user education—will continue into the New Year. But they’ll be affected by new industry developments such as impending privacy regulations, AI-enabled attacks, and attacks targeting developing nations. 

10. Segmenting And Segregating Your Network: Often Overlooked Tips For Keeping Businesses Safe 12/19/2019

    Let’s imagine the typical very-small-business with about 10 employees, maybe fewer. They probably use one network for everything, right? The secretary or office assistant has the same level of network access as their IT person—who may or may not just be someone’s nephew who’s pretty good with computers. Like many small businesses, they probably think this all makes perfect sense; after all, they’re too small to need anything more complicated. But then the unthinkable happens: the office assistant gets phished. Suddenly, network credentials for the whole business are up for grabs to cybercriminals.