Technology & IT | Monday 9 September, 2019 5:00 am |

Kaspersky is happy to announce the growth of its Managed Service Provider (MSP) business over the past two years. Since the launch of its MSP Program in 2017, 2,000 providers have joined the ecosystem across North and Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, with the highest number of partners registering in Europe.

Today, MSPs are becoming stronger players in the cybersecurity market as business customers increasingly choose to outsource IT security services. According to the “Kaspersky IT Security Risks Survey, 2019”, 59% of organizations plan to use an MSP in the near future to help them reduce their security-related costs, while 43% of businesses value the dedicated expertise that comes with outsourcing their IT security support.

Growing these partnerships is a strategic priority for Kaspersky. In January 2019, the company unveiled an updated partner program, ‘Kaspersky United’ that includes enhancements for new and existing MSP partners. Thanks to a new, streamlined registration process, MSPs can now become an approved partner twice as fast. The dedicated Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business training, which is key for endpoint protection, has been updated to simplify and accelerate MSP specialization for partners who have recently joined the company ecosystem. This training helps MSP partners become experts in endpoint protection, deployment, security policy setting, monitoring and reporting. Kaspersky’s MSP offering also includes updated financial benefits: with flexible pricing, managed service providers can demand special rates when committing to certain levels of product license sales.

“Kaspersky's extensive product portfolio enables us to protect our customers — from SMEs to enterprises — against cybercrime. The personal and direct contact we have with the Kaspersky team helps us to quickly answer customer inquiries. That is why we highly value our cooperation with Kaspersky, especially for the long-term,” comments Christian Boertje, General Director, DGDO.

“Kaspersky remains committed to our partner community and we understand that ease of doing business is the key demand of any MSP. This recent update to our MSP Partner Program is part of a larger improvement plan focused on existing and new partners, their profitability, business needs and access to tools and security solutions,” commented Ivan Bulaev, Head of Global Channel at Kaspersky.

Kaspersky’s cybersecurity portfolio includes a range of products for MSPs, including endpoint protection, cloud services and cloud environments. Cloud-based security is growing in popularity and currently accounts for one-fifth of purchases among its MSP offerings, according to Kaspersky statistics. With Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud, partners can provide cybersecurity support for small and medium-sized customers with easy to roll-out cloud protection that can be managed through a web console, without the need for additional investment in hardware.