A remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool gives managed services providers (MSPs) the ability to monitor clients’ IT and troubleshoot and repair a range of issues without a trip to their offices or facilities. There’s no doubt RMM provides value—but are you maximizing it? An RMM tool can do more than help you efficiently run your business. It can help you grow it. Consider these three ways.
Generating Value-Driven Reports
A good RMM tool will enable you to pull reports on the services you’ve delivered to your clients. A great RMM tool will help you show the value you’ve provided.
Mark Whiffen, Senior Product Manager for Barracuda MSP, points out, “Not all reports are the same. To demonstrate value isn’t about the server, the application, or the patch; it’s about whether customers perceive that the work completed by the MSP is helping their businesses,” he says. “While many MSP-focused tools offer reporting, MSPs should consider if the reports available are value-driven. Or else, they are just reports that show the work completed and not the value the work offers to customers.”
Whiffen says when providing security services, for example, not to provide a report on the “number of ransomware attacks last month.” A report would show more value if it gave an assessment of last month’s known vulnerabilities across the customer’s network and how much more secure it is this month, along with a report of the work you’ve done. “This will help MSPs retain customers and stimulate growth for their business,” Whiffen says.
Strengthening Security
An RMM tool gives you visibility into a client’s IT environment—both what’s there and what’s missing. If you see that antivirus isn’t active, patches aren’t up to date, or other essential security elements need attention, you have the opportunity to become a hero and correct vulnerabilities to cyberattack.
Barracuda’s RMM tool has a built-in Site Security Assessment feature that allows you to take a security-first approach with your clients without installing additional agents or using added solutions. It also includes three levels of reporting:
- A summary that MSPs can share with customers
- Details of individual tests and their results
- An in-depth report on tests, suggested remediation and all devices at risk.
Whiffen says, with this type of information from your RMM tool, “MSPs can enhance their security services, leveraging it as a sales tool for prospective and existing customers, to generate additional revenues. They can highlight areas of weakness and how the MSP can help them strengthen security and close vulnerability gaps, while at the same time better protecting their own competitive brand.”
Supporting Digital Transformation
Whiffen comments that RMM tools have been valuable to MSPs throughout the pandemic, providing real-time monitoring and management so that they could deliver services and maintain social distancing.
“Having an RMM that gives MSPs real-time data on potential issues, the ability to remotely address the issues, such as remotely restart services and apply patches, and proactively deliver their services to their customers has been critical,” says Whiffen. He adds, however, alerts and notifications will be essential to an MSP business beyond the pandemic.
“As MSPs continue to digitally transform, it is important to streamline and ensure they can maximize their technician time when managing the different services,” Whiffen says. RMM integrations will further advance MSPs’ digital transformation.
“For instance, cloud adoption has increased significantly during the pandemic, with many SMBs moving to Microsoft O365. An integration with O365, for example, would help MSPs to manage O365 using their RMM tool, instead of going to another interface to manage their customers’ O365 environment directly,” he explains.
Similarly, integrating with security solutions and services, such as multifactor authentication (MFA), encryption, antivirus and ransomware protection, will enable a higher level of security and business continuity for your customers—and added opportunities to sell deeper into your customer base.
RMM Tools Can Reveal What Your Clients Need
Your clients need solutions that will help them operate more efficiently and securely and that deliver calculable value to their businesses. Your RMM tool can provide you with visibility into what your clients need, sometimes proactively, so that you can advise them on deficiencies or vulnerabilities they should correct. Then, once you’ve provided the products and services to address those needs, your RMM tool can generate reports that communicate the value you’ve provided—whether it’s fewer risks, greater efficiency, or cost savings.
Consider how much more your RMM tool can do than simply giving you remote monitoring and service capabilities—then leverage those capabilities to build stronger client relationships, provide new services, and watch revenue numbers grow. 
