The Managed Service Provider's Responsibility to the Cloud End-User

As a partner with many MSPs, I often have a chance to speak with industry IT leaders and understand how they are seeing the world. Lately, our conversations always seem to touch on the spectrum that exists within an organization regarding the gap between user productivity needs and IT’s obligation to protect organizational data. Nowhere is this more evident than with Office 365.

According to a recent Ingram Micro article Office 365 fast growth in the SMB space is surpassing enterprise growth. More users connecting to company data from a host of locations, using an array of devices can mean more complications. Users want to leverage the power of Office 2016, Skype for Business and OneNote collaboration online, or they need access to company documents via SharePoint and OneDrive. More and more the SMB is looking to you, the Managed Service Provider, as a way to reduce overhead, provide IT security and improve operational efficiency. Your MSP solution has a seat at the SMB table, often with a role in directing IT Governance. You’ve suggested tools such as AppLocker for allowing or denying application access, but what about supporting users and their race to be more productive?

How can the MSP support cloud end-users?

After moving to the cloud, your clients’ end-users face frequent forced software updates, changes to user interface, new features released with no announcement and a host of additional issues. Providing adequate and ongoing training resources is necessary for this cultural change. Users will need information at their fingertips. Your help desk is not the vehicle to provide this level of support. A good option is to offer an online training solution with a blended approach reaching across all learning styles, an inexpensive price tag , and which fits within your services mix. 

To help you wade through the myriad of options you can read our recent post 3 Steps to Take Your Software Training Online. We highlight a solution that is scalable, cost effective and easy to implement with the ultimate goal to help the end-user be more productive.

Eric Sokolowski is co-founder and CEO of KnowledgeWave and has been a leader in the training and virtual learning arena for nearly 20 years. He has witnessed the evolution of this industry, and has been at its forefront accelerating the transformation from one-size-fits-all delivery to continuous learning available at your fingertips.

Eric works with Managed Services Providers and MSP Associations to provide end-user solutions that complement the MSP service mix and increase MSP client retention.