How to use Microsoft Secure Score to win business as an MSP

Your customers are already embracing the productivity potential of Microsoft 365. It’s no longer novel to host meetings on Team, collaborate using OneDrive and SharePoint, and even leverage AI using Copilot. Your customers are Cloud-first, and MSPs need to adapt accordingly.  

As Cloud services centred around Microsoft are starting to saturate the market, you need a differentiator. And robust and effective security can be just that.  

We’ll break down how to use Microsoft Secure Score to show the value of your services, start security conversations with customers and prospects, and ultimately win new business.  

What is Microsoft Secure Score? 

Secure Score is a built-in cyber security ranking tool from Microsoft. An organization’s Secure Score is shown as a percentage, which represents the strength of their security posture. They are calculated by considering key areas of security such as device security, data encryption and authentication, and tenants’ password protection.  

Secure Scores are a clear and effective way to identify potential vulnerabilities and areas for improvement across your customer base.  

Isn’t Secure Score just a marketing tactic? 

If this is what you’re currently thinking, you certainly aren’t alone. Many MSPs disregard the importance of Microsoft Secure Score as the metric is designed to reflect how much of the Microsoft security stack a user has adopted. If you’re using third-party tools to secure your Microsoft environment, your Secure Score could still be low.  

However, you shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Secure Score entirely. It still has a lot of value.  

As you know, as an MSP, you need to continually achieve and demonstrate compliance to keep customer trust. New cyber threats are always emerging, and Microsoft is always releasing new updates and adding new features, controls, and policies. Without Secure Score, you would need to proactively and consistently monitor for new issues or vulnerabilities across your customer environments.  

Now you can use Secure Score as a signpost to support the continuous improvement of your security baselines and Microsoft 365 tenant hardening. As Microsoft release new updates, you might find that your Secure Score lowers, which will indicate that you need to check your recommended actions and potentially take actions to remediate issues and harden your tenants.  

Why is Secure Score important? 

Your customers might not be paying attention to Secure Score yet, but they will soon. Microsoft has now started actively marketing Secure Score to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). To appear proactive, rather than reactive, you need to make sure that you speak to your customers about Secure Score first, before Microsoft do.  

A clear percentage metric  

When your customers are presented with a clear percentage value by Microsoft, they will believe that it reflects the overall strength of their security posture, even if this is not necessarily true. By keeping your customers’ Secure Score high, you can both show your ongoing value through an easy to understand metric, and open to the door to further conversations about cyber security. You could even get an upsell opportunity out of it! 

Lower cyber security premiums  

Cyber insurance underwriters are increasingly using Microsoft Secure Score as part of their risk assessment. A higher score suggests a lower risk of a breach, which can lead to reduced cyber insurance premiums or better policy terms.

This offers an incentive for SMBs to invest in their Microsoft security and allows you to provide tangible value if you can keep customers’ Secure Scores high.  

How are MSPs using Secure Score to win new business? 

You can use Secure Score both to win new business and show ongoing value to your existing customers. 

Enable sales conversations 

If you audit a prospective customer’s security environment and find that their Secure Score is low, you can easily present this to them to diminish trust in their existing provider. You can then highlight your experience and accreditations and explain how you would improve their Secure Score, making initial sales conversations run much more smoothly.  

Show ongoing value 

You can treat your customers’ Secure Score like a KPI, helping you to track your performance as a security provider. By keeping your customers’ Secure Scores high, you can demonstrate your ongoing value and keep trust in your services high.  

Using inforcer’s free Partner Center Companion tool, you can assess your entire Secure Score landscape at-a-glance and see your average Secure Score across customers. You can use your average Secure Score to demonstrate your value to new prospects too.  

You can also see individual tenants’ Secure Scores, including the granular information you need to make effective changes. With our Companion tool, you don’t need to manually go into the Partner Center for each tenant to see the information you need.  

How to start talking about Secure Score 

When starting to introduce Microsoft Secure Scores to your customers, you should do a few key things: 

• Explain what Secure Score is and what it means for their cyber security. 
• Explore what a good Secure Score looks like and set expectations accordingly depending on their current security posture.
• Evaluate their current Secure Score and outline potential actions and improvements as part of a wider roadmap in the context of their ongoing IT strategy.

Secure new business with Secure Score 

Want to find out more about how you can win new Microsoft Business? Download our eBook, The Modern MSP and Microsoft, to discover why adopting a Microsoft-centric approach to security could boost your new business opportunities.