Go Beyond Break/Fix: Diversify Your Managed Service Offerings with AvePoint
Organizations are navigating complex compliance and regulatory frameworks while simultaneously feeling pressure to adopt emerging technologies like AI copilots, agents, and operators to remain competitive. Deloitte predicted that 25% of companies that use generative AI (GenAI) will launch agentic AI pilots or proofs of concept in 2025, which will grow to 50% in 2027. However, the risks associated with AI are significant, persistent, and will constantly evolve.
AI has made the managed services landscape even more complex, being an incredibly versatile technology that can be used for both protection and harm. While AI enhances defensive security capabilities, allowing for more sophisticated threat detection and response, it also empowers attackers. According to Canalys, the scope of managed services now must include cybersecurity as a standard rather than as an optional add-on, alongside compliance, regulation, and vertical expertise. Many small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) lack the capacity or resources to secure and optimize their data in order to achieve scalable success with AI. This demand will only grow as the skills shortage for security professionals continues to increase. Only 14% of organizations are confident they have the people needed to meet their cybersecurity objectives. This means managed service providers (MSPs) will have a great opportunity to fill this gap for their clients while needing to scale their own security professionals across many clients.
To overcome this, SMBs often partner with MSPs to oversee their IT infrastructure and build a strategic technology roadmap as AI adoption kicks into gear. The ability to manage technology remotely on behalf of a customer is the basis for all IT managed services. MSPs must go beyond traditional break/fix services to proactive managed services to meet the growing demands of their clients.
This blog offers a practical roadmap for MSPs looking to effectively navigate proactive services, diversify service offerings, and discover substantial recurring revenue streams, positioning themselves as indispensable partners to their clients.
Table Stakes – Margins and Migration
Despite the emergence of new opportunities, traditional services remain in high demand. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity continues to surge across industries, with Canalys reporting a 45% increase in M&A activities in 2025. This activity drives a significant need for data migration and consolidation services, whether moving from on-premises to cloud or between cloud providers.
With AvePoint, MSPs can migrate from more sources than any other migration vendor, keeping up with 41% more in your pocket per migrated object (e.g., mailbox). However, relying on multiple, fragmented vendor solutions can hinder MSPs from seeing the full picture of their customers’ infrastructure.
AvePoint Elements is an all-in-one platform purpose-built for MSPs to manage multiple clients, clouds, and tenants from a single pane of glass. Even in the case of traditional project-based migrations, organizations need to blend security with high-speed scale, data transformation, dynamic mappings, and simple one-click reporting. These capabilities provide stakeholders with transparency, reducing the overhead of manual report building, together with peace of mind knowing data is classified before migration and critical metadata like security labels, permissions, and more are migrated over correctly — all without needing to use agents.
Migration services further increase margins by enabling the easy integration of backup, business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR), data security posture management (DSPM), configuration baselines to protect against drift, device management, and more from one vendor without the need to install multiple tools and agents. Move quickly from migration to hypercare and, ultimately, data security solutions with AvePoint.
Data Management: The Foundation of Modern MSP Success
Data sprawl and security remain top concerns as companies migrate to digital workspaces to keep up with the needs of today’s operations. Gartner estimated that 30% of generative AI projects will be abandoned in 2025 due to poor data quality and inadequate risk controls. The reality is that over 80% of migrations still fail to be completed on time or within budget.
The data management challenge extends beyond simple storage and organization. MSPs can help SMBs store, protect, and leverage data effectively by providing data management solutions, including backup and recovery options. MSPs often offer access to advanced analytics tools that deliver actionable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and operational performance. This data-centric approach allows SMBs to make informed decisions and stay competitive in a fast-evolving market.
AvePoint’s baseline management helps MSPs easily bring multiple clients up to standards. Templated configuration management for Microsoft 365 with multi-tenant capabilities, drift detection, remediation, point-in-time backup, and restore with a full change log audit trail are just a few of the features that enhance security and compliance.
Going Beyond Secure with Scale
Cybersecurity – particularly data security – creates an entirely new market segment for forward-thinking MSPs to capitalize on a need that benefits them and their customers simultaneously. By providing services and software to enhance data security and information management around AI, technology vendors, MSPs, value-added resellers (VARs), and others can help their customers boost profits while also expanding their business substantially. In 2025, total managed services revenue in the channel will grow 13%, and cybersecurity managed services will grow 15%.
Since customers are used to mixing and matching what they want and purchasing through cloud marketplaces, they may not want a single, static services stack. Hence, it’s increasingly important to reduce risks in the supply chain by eliminating agent- and appliance-based architectures that leave you vulnerable to zero-day attacks when left unpatched. In 2026, 55% of CIOs will diversify and broaden security strategies across their organization’s IT and security teams to address new and fast-evolving threats to their technology and supply chain ecosystem.
AvePoint’s solutions provide MSPs with detailed reports on risk exposure, security, AI readiness, and change management for modern challenges:
Risk management. This process becomes straightforward, providing clients with peace of mind and allowing them to focus on strategic initiatives. Tenant monitoring over 80 standardized security rules can enforce security and compliance against risky workspace and user settings within a tenant. Issues can be remediated directly within the monitoring center, or appropriate users can be notified to resolve them.
Security reporting. MSPs can help ensure that their clients’ data and systems are secure. With a streamlined workspace monitoring tool, MSPs can quickly implement robust security measures, monitor potential threats, and respond to security incidents.
AI readiness. The workspace management dashboard clearly visualizes the client’s preparedness across key dimensions, helping MSPs identify high-value service opportunities while giving clients actionable insights for improvement.
Change management. Effective communication builds trust and transparency with clients and their end users. AvePoint’s solution revolutionizes the process with AI-enhanced communication solutions with end users through Teams, SharePoint Online, and email, ensuring smooth transitions and updates.
This capability allows MSPs to demonstrate proactive management that minimizes business disruptions. This helps clients understand the value of the MSP’s business, communicate downtime, and avoid frustration, resulting in significant impacts on margins, revenue recognition, and client confidence.
The Path Forward for Modern MSPs
As MSPs navigate the complexities of the modern technological landscape, it is crucial to diversify their service offerings and go beyond traditional break/fix services. AvePoint’s solutions provide MSPs with the tools they need to enhance margins, improve security and compliance, and prepare for AI readiness. By leveraging the AvePoint Elements platform, MSPs can:
- Protect and enhance margins on traditional services.
- Expand into high-value advisory services.
- Implement scalable, repeatable processes across their client base.
- Demonstrate clear ROI to clients through intuitive dashboards and reporting.
The future belongs to MSPs that can deliver comprehensive solutions at scale while maintaining the agility to address emerging client needs. By partnering with AvePoint, MSPs position themselves at the forefront of this evolution, ready to capitalize on the opportunities that lie ahead.
Shyam Oza brings over 15 years of expertise in product management, marketing, delivery, and support, with a strong emphasis on data resilience, security, and business continuity. Throughout his career, Shyam has undertaken diverse roles, from teaching video game design to modernizing legacy enterprise software and business models by fully leveraging SaaS technology and Agile methodologies. He holds a B.A. in Information Systems from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
