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In the current competitive landscape, MSPs face many opportunities and challenges ahead. In a race to stay technologically relevant and efficient, they often find themselves grappling with a myriad of obstacle but are also uniquely positioned to address these challenges and create paths to sustainable growth.
As Australia grapples with one of its most severe IT skill shortages -- a staggering 70% of these skills are in short supply -- many MSPs find themselves challenged to adopt technological innovations and embrace transformation. Gartner projects that spending on security and risk management services will see double-digit growth until 2024, underscoring the need for MSPs to rise above the prevailing skill gap and re-think how they will be able to seize this opportunity.
With growing demand for their services, MSPs must optimise for efficiency, reduce overhead, and ensure talent retention. A promising approach to navigate these obstacles is the adoption of Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) automation, exemplified by platforms like NinjaOne.
Addressing challenges with NinjaOne RMM
NinjaOne's distinctive RMM methodology provides a suite of features tailored to address the fundamental challenges MSPs face in the market, positioning them for continued success.
Making automation easy
Every MSP needs to embrace automation as a cornerstone of their core service process. By simplifying how automation can be utilised, NinjaOne ensures tasks are attainable for technicians across all expertise levels. By doing so, MSPs can optimise their operations, enhancing efficiency and harnessing the full potential of their staff. With the RMM taking care of essential tasks like software patching, antivirus updates, custom scripting, and backup management, technicians and strategic IT resources can redirect their focus to value-added areas, further amplifying the MSP's impact.
Streamlined Software Installation
The automation library within the NinjaOne solution simplifies complex software installation workflows. MSPs can package complex installation workflows into re-usable bundles that can dramatically reduce the time and skill level required to deploy new software, allowing MSPs to roll out updates or new applications quickly and efficiently across multiple endpoints.
User-Friendly Automation
NinjaOne facilitates common tasks by offering out-of-box automation scripts that include dynamic script forms that sit alongside the script code. To customise the script, a technician need only fill in the form to adjust variables rather than touch the code. This makes it faster and easier for even less experienced technicians to deploy automation, gain efficiency and innovate in the dynamic market.
Simplified Patch Management
Keeping software up-to-date, and closing vulnerabilities is crucial for security and a core task for any MSP. With NinjaOne, patching is a part of setting up device and organisation policies, not an afterthought, so it ensures faster, more effective patching, significantly reducing security risk.
Intuitive User Interface
Working with an intuitive, user-friendly interface is crucial for any RMM tool both because it makes it easy for technicians to navigate the system and reduces the learning curve for new technicians. When the user interface is consistent across the platform, technicians can work faster, shaving seconds, minutes, and hours off their work time.
Enhanced Visibility
Clear device visibility and filtering capabilities are essential for effective IT management. As they say, what you can’t see, you can’t manage, so NinjaOne has a number of informative dashboards that offer both a clear overview of estate health, and the ability to dive deep into individual endpoints. Whether it’s monitoring the health of remote endpoints or assessing backup status, NinjaOne provides the visibility needed to proactively identify and resolve issues.
Overcoming the roadblocks to RMM
Despite the clear benefits, MSPs can be hesitant to adopt remote monitoring and management solutions. MSPs often build their service offerings by incorporating solutions and technologies from different vendors to adapt to changing market conditions. These diverse tech stacks can gradually create silos and add complexity to their architecture and environments. If the tools and solutions are not well integrated, MSPs may find themselves tied up in manual processes leading to errors that have a negative impact on customer service.
As the story of US-based MSP, Brave North Tech, shows, partners that do embrace RMM tools quickly find themselves at an advantage. “We wanted something that gave us more control over endpoints and systematically keep tabs on devices,” Brian Roemen, Principal and CTO at Brave North, said. “We needed a tool that would notify us when something was wrong, let us customise those alerts, and help us automate tasks.”
“Ninja helps us be lean and efficient by helping us to automate many of our repetitive tasks,” Brian added. Thanks to the automation and efficiency of the RMM solution, Brian and his team were able to focus on the growth and strategic advantages of the company, and deliver to their clients big-picture, high-value activities. “We leverage NinjaOne to automate many of the initial configuration and deployment steps when setting a new device. We’ve significantly cut down on the time we spend provisioning new devices for clients,” he said.
The biggest challenge MSPs face right now is powering growth while the opportunities are there, but doing so in an efficient and sustainable manner. Solutions like NinjaOne RMM can deliver greater efficiency, reduce costs, retain talent, and enhance marketing efforts, all by making it simple for MSPs to embrace automation, providing the time and bandwidth to deliver excellent IT services to their clients.
