As the global cybersecurity landscape undergoes a period of unprecedented transformation, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) face a critical juncture with security services. The acceleration of the threat landscape, fuelled by the sophisticated application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by malicious actors, has rendered traditional, point-product-based security models increasingly inadequate. In this second instalment of our two-part series, we explore the transition from individual point solution services towards newer platform. By shifting this focus, MSPs can effectively maximize sales, differentiate themselves in market, enhance operational efficiency, and secure higher margins for their businesses.
The Complexity Crisis: A Catalyst for New Managed Services
The modern enterprise is struggling under the weight of an unsustainable security architecture. With over 3,500 cybersecurity vendors currently vying for market share[1], enterprise customers are managing an average of 76[2] distinct security tools within their environments. This fragmentation creates a “complexity tax,” where the sheer volume of disparate systems leads to operational bottlenecks, visibility gaps, and increased risk.
Smaller organizations face an even more acute challenge. While they encounter the same sophisticated threats as large enterprises, they often lack the internal expertise to manage, integrate, and optimize such a vast array of tools. This gap between the demand for robust security and the ability to effectively manage it is the primary driver behind the significant growth of the managed security services market. The market is no longer looking for providers who can simply manage a firewall; they are looking for partners who can provide more comprehensive, integrated services that help them to simplify the entire security lifecycle.
The Shift: From “Best of Breed” to “Best of Suite”
Historically, the industry championed a “best of breed” approach, encouraging organizations to select the top-performing individual product for every security function. However, this strategy has proven difficult to sustain. We are now witnessing a decisive shift toward “best of suite” strategies. Customers are increasingly prioritizing vendors that offer integrated suites or platforms of security offerings. While individual components within a suite may not always be the absolute leader in a vacuum, their ability to work together—technically and commercially—provides superior value.
Cisco is at the forefront of this shift, facilitating this transition through unified UI platforms like Security Cloud Control (SCC). By centralizing management within a single console, partners can significantly reduce the overhead associated with licensing, renewals, and technical integration.
Micro-services like the Cisco Secure MSP Centre demonstrate a commitment to the partner ecosystem, bringing together critical security pillars—such as for web security, Secure Endpoint for endpoint protection, Duo for identity & access management, and soon Email Threat Defense—to address an organization’s core security requirements. Secure MSP Centre is based on Cisco’s MSLA (Managed Services Licensing Agreement) commercial model which offers true consumption, post-paid licensing, this allows the partner to neatly align in with the commercial models SMB and mid-market customers are typically looking for.
Leveraging Cisco Security Suites for Competitive Advantage
Another product based commercial model available is the ability to bundle multiple related products together into Suites. For MSPs, these product suites offer a foundation for building scalable, high-margin services. By leveraging Cisco’s integrated portfolios, providers can move away from managing point products and toward offering comprehensive, capability-based services:
- Cisco User Protection Suite: This suite prioritizes user-centric security, preventing threats from reaching the user while securing identities, devices, and access to corporate resources. It is designed to reduce friction for the end-user, thereby enhancing productivity without compromising security posture.
- Cisco Breach Protection Suite: Aimed at Security Operations (SOC) teams, this suite leverages AI and high-fidelity telemetry to unify multiple security technologies. It streamlines investigations and provides response guidance, effectively elevating the performance of Tier 1 analysts to match that of more experienced Tier 2 counterparts.
- Cisco Cloud Protection Suite: As organizations migrate to hybrid multi-cloud environments, this suite covers application and workload security providing the pervasive visibility and granular segmentation required to protect applications and data. It also offers a future strategic direction of embedding security into the network and applications via the new Hypershield solution.
The User Protection and Breach Protection suites are supported by the Cisco MSP Programmatic Discount program, which is specifically designed to enable MSPs to build repeatable, profitable service models by providing locked in pricing in an easy to order model.
The Strategic Pivot: Designing for “Customer Outcomes”
To achieve true market differentiation, MSPs must evolve their service offerings to be centered around “Customer Outcomes.” A customer does not necessarily want to buy a “managed firewall” or a “managed VPN.” They want to achieve a specific business result—for example, “secure application access for remote employees.”
When a customer combines a managed firewall, an internally managed SD-WAN, and a legacy VPN solution to achieve secure access, the complexity and cost are borne by the customer. An MSP that bundles these technologies into a single, cohesive “Secure Application Access” service—perhaps utilizing Security Service Edge (SSE) solutions like Cisco Secure Access—transforms a complex, fragmented requirement into a streamlined, high-value service.
Pivoting to Customer Outcome driven services takes time and does require research into what your customers are using your current services for, what are they combining them with and what are they trying to achieve. Delivering these higher valued services however is worth the effort, you further differentiate your services in market, and they will not be so price sensitive allowing you to increase service margins while also increasing customer retention.
Developing Your Services Roadmap
How can an MSP identify which outcome-focused services to build? The answer lies in deep, consistent engagement with your customer base. Providers need to ask the right leading questions during regular business reviews and advisory board sessions:
- What services is the customer getting from you today
a. What other security/network solutions are they combining those with in order to come up with what they need? - What are you buying from other providers?
- How do you handle cyber threats today and are you looking to change that in the future?
- What are you doing in house today that you want to outsource
- What are the key risks that you are seeing that might disrupt your business in the next few QTR’s
While it is rarely viable to create a custom service for a single client, identifying commonalities across a customer base—or within a specific vertical market, such as healthcare contractors or retail—allows for the creation of standardized, high-margin services. Customers put significantly more value into offerings that simply deliver most or all of their outcomes, this means you are under less pricing pressure and can maintain higher margins on these services while also increasing customer retention.
Conclusion: Fortune Favors the Bold
The managed security services market is at a genuine inflection point. The convergence of an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape, customer fatigue from tool sprawl, and the availability of integrated, platform-based solutions has created a rare window of opportunity for MSPs willing to lead rather than follow. Those who continue to sell point products in isolation will find themselves increasingly commoditised, competing on price in a race that no one wins. Those who make the shift to outcome-driven services will find themselves in a fundamentally different conversation with their customers: one centred on business value, strategic partnership, and long-term retention.
The path forward is clear, even if the journey requires investment. Start by deeply understanding what your customers are actually trying to achieve—not what products they are currently buying from you. Use that intelligence to identify service opportunities that span multiple technologies and deliver measurable outcomes. Leverage the commercial frameworks Cisco has built for the partner ecosystem—the MSLA consumption model, the MSP Programmatic Discount program, and integrated UI platforms like Security Cloud Control—to underpin services that are both technically compelling and commercially sustainable. Build your service roadmap iteratively, piloting with receptive customers, capturing feedback, and refining before scaling.
The MSPs that will define the next decade of managed security are not waiting for the market to stabilise—they are shaping it. They are the providers investing now in the service design, sales motion, and operational capability required to deliver security as a business outcome rather than a technical function. At Cisco, we are committed to being the vendor behind those partners: providing the technology platforms, flexible commercial models, and strategic enablement to help you build services that are differentiated, scalable, and built to last. The opportunity is significant. The tools are available. The question is simply whether your organisation is ready to lead.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescommunicationscouncil/2020/07/14/accelerating-business-to-human-cybersecurity-marketing-during-difficult-times/
[2] https://outshift.cisco.com/blog/hidden-cost-of-cybersecurity-tool-sprawl
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