New Cisco and ConnectWise Solution Helps MSPs Capitalize on the Growing Managed Security Services Opportunity

It’s a great time to be a managed service provider (MSP). Small businesses and enterprises alike are embracing managed services, and spending is expected to grow to $257.84 billionin 2022 with a CAGR of 11.1 percent.

It’s also a great time to be in the Bahamas at Cisco Partner Connection Week! We have 700 partners gathered here this week to talk technology strategy, and explore ways to tap into new markets in the coming year. Security, driving new services revenues, and simplifying business will all be hot topics.

Cisco and ConnectWise are announcing the development of a solution that will meet all of these needs – the ConnectWise Advanced Security Dashboard. This cloud management platform is being designed to make it easier for partners to move into the managed security services space without the excessive incremental investments in people or costly management platforms.

The ConnectWise Advanced Security Dashboard will be in pilot for a select group of Cisco partners during the month of May.  The Dashboard will enable partners to cost-effectively develop new value-added managed services around Cisco’s portfolio of Meraki MX firewalls, Umbrella, Stealthwatch Cloud, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASAs), Cisco Next Generation Firewall (NXGF), and AMP for Endpoints (A4E). This industry-leading security portfolio will provide MSPs robust capabilities such as global policy management, security event correlation, and network vulnerability discovery, supported by essential reporting capabilities.

Customers are up against new security concerns like malware, phishing attacks, and other evolving threats. They’re grappling with new government and industry compliance needs. Customers are asking their MSPs to “please keep my company safe, protect my customer data, and keep us out of the news.” The ConnectWise Advanced Security Dashboard will help you differentiate your practice by offering the rich managed security services customers are craving and it’s anticipated to allow upselling of value-added services, to drive new, recurring revenue streams.

“NuWave Technology Partners has worked with Cisco and ConnectWise for several years and this relationship has helped us meet the needs of our clients,” said Chad Paalman, CEO at NuWave Technology Partners. “The announcement of the ConnectWise Advanced Security Dashboard clearly demonstrates their combined understanding of the needs of managed service providers (MSPs) by developing a comprehensive and affordable solution built on Cisco’s leading security portfolio. This solution helps the most advanced MSPs as well as generalist MSPs, allowing them to manage these advanced security services for their clients from within the industry leading ConnectWise business management solution. Those generalist MSPs will now be able to deliver an enterprise-level security portfolio without having to make the heavy investments in Security Incident and Event Management tools, a Security Operations Center, and expensive talent. With this announcement, partners of Cisco and ConnectWise are positioned to enter a rapidly growing market space, and enables us to provide greater value to our clients for a significantly lower investment.”

A Partnership That is Gaining Momentum

Customers are consuming more and more technologies while at the same time security threats are evolving fast. Small and midsized businesses in particular are looking to MSPs for help in addressing their technology needs, protecting their company and customer data, and leveraging technology as a competitive advantage. MSPs are forging more relevant, strategic relationships with their customers, and many are evolving into roles as Virtual CIOs (vCIOs). All of this is leading to more opportunities for MSPs—and more possibilities for developing recurring revenue streams.

To help you tap into this potential, Cisco and ConnectWise, the leading global managed services platform provider, announced a partnership at Cisco Partner Summit 2017.  As part of the announcement, ConnectWise unveiled a new cloud management platform for MSPs called ConnectWise Unite with Cisco. ConnectWise Unite provides MSPs with a powerful monitoring, management and billing platform for Cisco’s leading cloud offers in Cisco Meraki, Cisco Umbrella, Cisco Spark and StealthWatch Cloud. It lets you deliver managed services more effectively, efficiently, and profitably, providing you with that “single pane of glass” we know MSPs prefer when going to market with their preferred technology vendors.

We’ve already seen some positive early results with ConnectWise Unite with Cisco from the industry and partners.Since our announcement, we’ve grown the number of active partners on the platform to nearly 400 partners, with over 1000 customers now under the management of ConnectWise Unite.

Our partners are very excited about the efficiencies and scalability that ConnectWise Unite bring to their managed services practice, especially the benefits associated with their Meraki customer environments. Of the more than 1000 customers currently under management, more than 850 include Meraki customers—totaling more than 20,000 Meraki devices.

Building on a Strong Start

The initial success of ConnectWise Unite has been impressive, but it’s only the beginning. Cisco and ConnectWise are continuing to team to create more value and recurring revenue opportunities for MSPs, and we believe that managed security services is a ripe opportunity.

This new teaming effort between Cisco and ConnectWise is the latest step in our commitment to provide MSPs with the confidence and capabilities they need to grow and evolve their businesses with our respective companies. Together, we are helping you elevate your practice and deliver more value to your customers.