How MSPs can deal with the current hiring crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic ​​threw the workforce into an imbalance between supply of workers and employer demand. Although the pandemic finally appears to be ending, businesses are still facing many challenges. While May saw job openings decrease, hiring and separation (quitting, layoffs, etc.) remained relatively unchanged. This indicates turnover rates are still high across most industries.

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are no exception to this trend. To acquire and retain qualified employees, companies must be competitive with their compensation. Workers are also demanding more flexibility with working hours and within remote environments.

How can MSPs save money and avoid security issues? Let’s talk about SaaS Alerts’ Respond module and how it can become your new robotic employee.

What is Respond, and What can it do?

Launched in June, Respond is SaaS Alerts’ third and newest module. In addition to Managing and Reporting on critical security issues, Respond allows MSP Partners to take automated action on alerts involving their clients, based on customized rules and policies.

The Respond module can automatically block sign-in on users of a compromised Microsoft 365 account and expire all logins. In addition, it can change user passwords and require MFA on the next login to give MSPs valuable time to investigate the threat. This type of automated “robotic employee” can save MSPs valuable time and money in several different ways.

How Respond Can Make Your MSP More Efficient

24/7 Protection

In order to align yourself with MSP best practices, you need to have security in place for your customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many companies need to hire an overnight security analyst to be available to address security threats that take place after business hours or during holiday periods. What happens if they become sick or take a vacation? You will need to make sure someone else can fill in during their absence.

Respond can be set to remediate critical alerts on an ongoing basis, removing the need for an overnight analyst. It can also be set for specific dates. For example, your security analyst is going on vacation, but it’s Christmas week and you’re short-staffed as it is. By activating Respond for the dates you won’t have coverage, your customers will be better protected against cyber threats. Or maybe you rather not hire a security analyst at all, you can program SaaS Alerts to remediate issues 24/7/365.

Faster Response Times

Employees are busier than ever. With increased demand and the labor shortage, security professionals can’t have their eyes on every client at every moment of the day. As shown in the 2022 SaaS Applications Security Insights (SASI) Report, cyber crime is on the rise and hackers are finding new ways to infiltrate businesses’ infrastructure and steal their critical data. This puts more stress on the MSPs who are already stretched thin.They may be busy with one customer or dealing with another issue when a threat arises. Respond immediately takes action on alerts that are created in real-time, making the process more efficient and saving critical response time for the MSP.

Cost Savings 

Respond can save you thousands of dollars per year by eliminating the need for extra employees. Let’s take a look at the cost breakdown for an MSP with 1,000 users.

The average overnight security analyst salary costs an MSP $102,600 annually or $49.33 per hour. To use SaaS Alerts with Respond, your cost would be .80/user or $9,600 per year. That’s a savings to your MSP of $93,000 a year! 

Using Respond will not only save you time and money, but it will alleviate headaches caused by common oversights and increase your value to your customers.

Would you like to see Respond in action? Request a demo today to learn how to automate your cybersecurity remediation.