INDUSTRY VIEW
THE NEXT CONSTRAINT ON MSP GROWTH IS SECURITY OPERATIONS
As demand for managed cybersecurity services grows, MSPs must ensure their security operations can scale without sacrificing service quality, profitability or customer trust. André Kannemeyer, Technical CEO, Duxbury Networking, tells us why automation, platform consolidation and smarter use of scarce cybersecurity expertise will be critical for South African MSPs looking to turn rising demand into sustainable growth.
Many South African businesses rely on Managed Service Providers( MSPs) for cybersecurity because maintaining specialist capability inhouse is expensive and difficult.
That demand creates a genuine growth opportunity for MSPs, but it also raises an uncomfortable question. Can their security operations expand at the same pace as their customer base?
An MSP may win new clients and increase recurring revenue while its analysts continue working across fragmented tools and labour-intensive processes. Growth can look healthy on the commercial dashboard even as response times and service consistency quietly deteriorate.
A recent Cynet analysis puts useful evidence behind that risk. The underlying survey covered 200 cybersecurity decision-makers at USbased MSPs with between five and 100 employees. While it is not South African research, the operating pressures it identifies are nevertheless highly relevant to local providers.
André Kannemeyer, Technical CEO, Duxbury Networking
The capacity gap is already visible The surveyed MSP managed an average of 50 clients and 1,728 endpoints, while responding to more than 100 security incidents a year. Most providers used four security tools from four vendors and security specialists represented only 8 % to 20 % of their staff. Half identified limited automation as their greatest obstacle to scaling.
South African MSPs must consider those findings against a local skills market that is already constrained. The CSIR’ s national cybersecurity
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