Defend, Govern & Prove:
The unified MSP

To our last episode in the unified MSP series or the Defend, Govern & Prove series as it's actually called. This one is wrapping up everything we've been through. We've been through a vast amount quite literally the last few days or the last few weeks. I think it's 11 weeks in total that we've been running this series because the problem we started with wasn't phishing compliance or alerts. It was we had powerful security tools but we didn't have any operational model.

Too many portals, not enough proof. For the unified MSP series is exactly the reason why we've done this. We talk about Defend, Govern & Prove. For the past 11 weeks, we've explored the stack piece by piece. So, we spoke about defender, intune, entra, purview, small topics around defender for govern defender for cloud apps, AI security, governance as its own service. And each time we solved a technical problem and we did we spoke about where we can remove tool A and we can consolidate to this unified MSP experience.

But every time I think it's safe to say there was one thing that always remained or one topic that we always didn't quite answer is can we prove we are secure? Can we prove to our customer that they are secure? And that's a conversation I don't think we've really been able to give to our customers directly. And for us, it's that fragmented MSP nightmare piece. It's the topic that we've always been discussing.

Even today, many MSPs live in the same cycle, costly cycle, which is switching between Defender, Purview, and Excel starts to produce a single client report. We've had the same cycle. We've had too many tools that we've got to manage, no multi-tenant visibility or view, and quite frankly, wasted engineering time. Microsoft has and for the last at least five years provided us a powerful solution. And if we incorporate that in with inforcer, we take the power and we start to create perspective.

Most MSPs today are failing because the lack of because they lack tools. They're failing because they lack the visibility. It's not necessarily just the tools that they're lacking. It's the visibility more than anything that we really don't see. An engineer in an example here wants to show security posture. They in this instance they're going to open defender then Intune then Purview then they're going to export it to an Excel environment upload it to Power BI.

Two hours later they haven't even improved security. All they've done is they've just assembled a report. Engineers nowadays start to collect evidence instead of improving posture. Improving the security posture that we talk about. And that for me is the trap that we've been in for the last 15 to 20 years. Security became a reporting exercise instead of an operational process. And I think we've looked at this as a different perspective far too long. And I'd like to start looking at reigning that in.

And it starts with utilizing the complete Microsoft security stack. This is the moment I think really that the penny starts to drop when we talk about operational process and the best security posture that we can offer. Microsoft hasn't built a product.

They built a security cloud solution. Identity that starts to protect access device that starts to protect the entry on the endpoint. Email protection that supports communication not just emails but teams and then data that pro data protects the information detection in this instance also protects the response and then fundamentally AI starts to protect the behavior. These elements that we've spoken about this last seven episodes, excluding this one here, starts to create this on kind of ongoing operational talking point.

Part of this defend, govern process or philosophy that we're starting to adopt. These aren't security products. They're sensors in the same nervous system. And that's something that's so important for me. This is the six pillars for a uni to form a unified security cloud solution. And I think that's when we can start to realize that Microsoft solved a security issue for the last few years. They didn't solve running security as a service because that sits with us fundamentally.

But they have solved the six pillars that we need to provide a zero trust but also a high-scale security solution for our customers. And this is the missing piece that I think we need to be aware of. Together these six pillars start to form a formidable security cloud solution. But the one thing we always forget for MSPs is we have to manage that across every tenant and we have to do it at scale. We have to bridge that gap.

And you'll notice on the top right hand corner of this slide is the inforcer logo. And it's been across this entire platform this whole series the ability to start to centralize and utilize well centralize but also utilize those six pillars.

Specifically, Microsoft delivered the world-class security technology, but no single pane of glass for an MSP is going to help manage dozens of tenants. We need to be able to see it at scale, manage those tenants at scale. And that's why this topic is so important. So for us, when we talk about our customers, there are a few things we always have to make sure we're answering. Are all my customers secure right now? And no native multi-tenant operational view and how sorry how are we going to manage that multi-tenant operational view these things are so important that gap is why the MSP security feels expensive manual and hard to scale and we look at these products without a kind of centralized solution that we can adopt and collect together really starts to make things really difficult for us and that's where inforcer fits into this piece so inforcer's operational layer the conversations really that we're having right now.

The operational layer for us is the Microsoft first approach.

inforcer starts to transform the Microsoft stack from a collection of powerful unified solutions to a unified MSP operating model. For you guys, it's centralizing it. And for us, we take those six pillars and we actually look at four strategic pillars that we need to look at. So the first one's assessments. It's the baseline assessment, seeing where they fit to our best security posture. The drift detection for us to identify any risks instantly against those configurations we've built.

And then for us, it's the alignment policy framework and automation. It's starting to take all of the security best practices and postures we've created and centralize that for delivery to enforce a compliance baseline of security and data governance across our customers environments. We're taking ourselves on a new level and we're going to be able to do it at scale leveraging products like inforcer. And the last area is assurance well second to last sorry is assurance reporting frameworks and proving what we have ready to go compliance readiness.

So that's the assessments again that we run. We start with the first build, do the initial check, implement our alignment best practice, and then with assurance, we can actually run alignment reports to prove to our customers that we are providing the correct value to them directly. And then the last area is amplification, ROI dashboards, business intelligence, being able to demonstrate the value that we're giving to customers. When we talk about building out a unified MSP operating model, that modern MSP operating model that we've been talking about for the last eight episodes, for us, this is about demonstrating value.

When customers come to us and say, "What are we doing?" We need to be able to direct and explain exactly and in fact prove what we're doing. And that's where this Defend, Govern & Prove delivery comes from. For the defense side, we want to reduce the attack surface automatically. That's that assessment and alignment piece. Identifying the problems, aligning it to the best practice that we've got as MSPs. We also need to align configurations continuously.

It's not just a oneanddone model, which I think for many years is what we've done with professional services. We go in, we run a deployment, we move on to the next project. We have to continuously align the configurations. We need to see what's going on in Microsoft utilizing inforcer dispatches as an example and then make sure that we're continuously aligning them to our frameworks of best practice. And the last piece, the most important piece of this puzzle when customers say, "What value do we bring to them?" It's proving it.

So produce the evidence constantly, not just a one-off during an audit or when requested, but let's be proactive in producing that evidence regularly. And that's that alignment report. Running the alignment report with 100% or 80% alignment. It's a conversational piece, but it's also demonstrating where customers truly sit within our environment. Firstly, it mitigates liability of us as MSPs, but secondly, it just shows to customers how successful and proactive we want them to be and not just on an efficiently efficiency level, but with their trusted relationship with you guys as a business.

So when we talk about this, we're talking about that one login, that one dashboard with many tenants.

This is where the Defend, Govern & Prove stops becoming a concept which I've had for many years now and starts to becoming your daily workflow. Every control, every tenant, every framework visible for us at a glance in a single model. The ability to see where customers align which meets that three pillar tier that we've been talking about. We can use single sign on one login across all those tenants a unified view posture scored by the tenant your alignment piece and then the instant actions remediate the drifts in real time identify what's going on in environment that shouldn't be there and let's act on them and as inforcer starts to build out new controls new measures we're going to be able to schedule this information as we scale it's a relationship as a journey we're a partner with you guys as much as we are a partner with your customers but that relationship of a trusted partner starts with you.

So let's talk about proof, profit and partnership. These are the three areas that we really need to focus on. MSP is moving from an old operating model to a modern operating model which is exactly what I want to nail home today. We have to demonstrate that we can be providing the proof. We can make ourselves profitable as much as our customers in terms of efficiencies and others. But more importantly, you guys are building a correct and solid partnership with your customers.

And there's areas that we help to improve that. Firstly, it's efficiency. Let's consolidate the tools you currently have into a single pane of glass, but also leveraging that unified Microsoft stack that's available. Take our customers from business basic and standard to business premium to get the big package. And then let's add on those bolt-ons like Defender Suite for Business and so on. Fewer tools, faster alignments, and as a result, this will equal fully automated audits.

The ability to run those proof of concepts to customers directly. The other is profitability for you guys. Sell your baseline alignment. Sell your compliance assurance and your AI governance as recurring services. Monthly managed services is what's going to drive our successful revenue. We spend our time with selling licenses, selling use accounts, producing reports on tickets they've created as a reactive support model. Let's look at actually creating these as managed services off offerings. Sell as a service, security as a service, compliance as a service, governance as a service.

Think about where that profitability sits, but your security best practice and baseline is fundamental to that delivery. Prove it to your customers. Once you've got this model in place, clients start to see monthly measurable results. So, drift reduction, compliance gains, threat prevention, all of this is reportable in things like the alignment report. And the last area, and I say this and I know we've been calling ourselves these sort of configurations or partnerships with our customers for a while, but move from being just that vendor to a strategic security partner to a strategic governance partner.

It's time to start looking at our new naming convention, our new structure. I know that PAX 8 recently produced a managed intelligence provider model. This isn't probably quite on the road map yet, but it's certainly on the horizon. Let's start adopting the right partnerships with our customers because that's what's going to drive us to become a lot more effective. And I want to wrap up on this these last couple of slides. Defend, Govern & Prove. For me, we're taking ourselves from that old operating model to a modern.

And it's not selling licenses or alerts anymore. For you guys, it's starting to sell trust. We're selling assurance.

And more importantly, we're going to start selling proof that they are as secure as they can be. That zero trust model that most people talk about and have done for the last 24 months. You don't need 12 vendors and 30 dashboards anymore. What we really need is a unified one stack Microsoft solution. One operational brain which in this instance inforcer and then that one philosophy that I've been nailing home this past 11 weeks which is Defend, Govern & Prove.

Let's take ourselves on this new journey building the right relationship to our customers but leveraging single and fewer tools but a single pane of glass to be able to provide that solution to our customers. We become a lot more effective to our businesses we support when we can generate and prove the value we give to them. I don't want you to remember the products from this series. I want you to remember the shift. Security tools don't scale as a service anymore.

Visibility creates the value. Proof starts to create the trust and trust creates the reoccurring revenue. They're the three fundamental areas that we need to focus on when we talk about the defend, govern process and concept. Visibility creates value. Can you imagine if we can create that single pane of glass of visibility for us? It's then proof creating that trust. We take that visibility that we've provided. We produce it into a nice report for the proof that the trust builds.

And as a result, the more that we're trusted, the more that re reoccurring revenue can exist. It's that model. It's the ability to take ourselves from that old operating selling licenses and alerts to selling trust, taking ourselves on that defend, govern journey. So what does it look like for me? Defend, Govern & Prove is the modern MSP operating model. It's one stack, one brain, one philosophy, and it's Microsoft and inforcer as a partnership. I'm going to wrap up here.

I like finishing early when I talk about these sort of conversations, but build out what you've got. Start that journey with inforcer. Give us a call, book in some demos, talk to some of our sales reps, speak to myself directly. I'm part of the same team. And let's create that partnership that can drive you guys to a modern MSP operating model, particularly leveraging the Microsoft 365 cloud.