We do proudly wave the cloud computing flag around here. The future of our business rests with the expectation that enterprises will continue to right-size the solution for their IT needs with a combination of on-premise and cloud resources.

But no business is in business for very long if its expectations, and its product or service offering, are not defined by the hard reality of what is happening in the marketplace.

To that end, we continue to talk with managed service providers and scrutinize any fresh research that provides insight into their challenges and opportunities as the pandemic settles in for the winter. One of the latest comes from Altaro, which develops backup solutions for MSPs. Altaro released in mid-September the results of a survey it conducted of more than 180 MSPs worldwide.

Altaro leads its story with how MSPs have “resisted business pressures to lay off staff despite declining revenues and economic uncertainty” – eight out of 10 said they did not lay off staff and those that did expect to rehire within the next six months.

The datapoint that most resonated with us related to the impact of remote working on cloud adoption and usage:

“As work-from-home becomes the norm for many companies, contributing to an increase in Cloud and IT services, a window of opportunity opened up for MSPs. They responded by expanding their services and product offerings to meet this increased demand.”

More than 75 per cent of Altaro’s survey respondents said remote working is their best revenue-generating opportunity. This is followed by cloud computing (61 per cent) and security-as-a-service (38 per cent).

Further to this, an expansion of current product and service offerings is on deck for the two-thirds of respondents that have begun to develop a post-COVID recovery plan.

That’s what the service providers, the MSPS, say – what about the demand side of the equation?

Earlier in the summer, hybrid IT services provider Ensono surveyed 153 IT decision makers across the U.S. and the U.K.

About one in three of Ensono’s survey respondents reported that their IT budgets have increased, and they have been given more scope to define IT spend since the beginning of the pandemic. Only five per cent reported they have been given less scope. About 43 per cent report an improved relationship with other senior executives since the pandemic began.

Meanwhile, 56 per cent of IT decision makers are seeing a greater urgency within their organizations for digital transformation over the next few years. Almost one in four reported that their organizations have been forced to begin digital transformation now.

“The IT department has been trusted to act fast and deliver so businesses can continue to move forward and safely address the needs of their team members and customers,” Paola Doebel, Senior VP, Managing Director of North America, for Ensono, said in the release.

The IT department has been trusted to act fast and deliver – but how?

This, of course, is a job for an MSP, provided it has in place the tools, the automated processes and the catalogue of services that will enable it to step up and be that turnkey partner which its enterprise clients need.

As an MSP, what is your pandemic recovery plan? What new services, such as cloud, security and backup, are on your radar to offer? Do you have in place the automated processes to simplify service provisioning, orchestration and billing, or does the prospect of adding new services leave you with a headache?

Rather than reaching for your pain reliever of choice, consider giving us a call.