Moving beyond the acronyms. Tips for finding the right Managed Service Provider.

You need your MSP to wear many hats. As your de facto CIO, IT Director, Help Desk, and Cybersecurity expert, you need to know your MSP can get it done – and get it done well. One way to assess an MSP’s expertise and commitment to building dynamic and ongoing know-how is to ask what certifications they hold.  

 Trusting that your data and information are handled in a trustworthy, transparent fashion, and that proper security and data integrity are always maintained should be table stakes in your selection process. You should start here.  

 From a customer perspective, you need to know and be confident that your service provider is maintaining the security, confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of your information. These are the pillars that are audited in the arduous and intensive SOC 2 Certification process. SOC 2 certified vendors have to prove to the audit team that their processing environment, organizational procedures, physical and data security, and business recovery plans meet the compliance standards set by the AICPA. 

 Then, dig deeper. What are the particular certifications held for quality management, hardware, switching, and firewall, etc.? How about OS or virtualization certs? This isn’t about being handed a laundry list of acronyms, it is about understanding whether the MSP values training and education, and whether their engineers will be on the cutting edge of topics that ultimately matter to your organization.  

 For instance, is the MSP investing in training their team on CISSP, which proves you have what it takes to effectively design, implement and manage a best-in-class cybersecurity program? Have they invested the time in the ISO 9000 certification? And, perhaps more deeply, how many of their engineers have made it through the eight-level training and certification Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) program that gives technical professionals an independent validation of their network security skills and experience?  

 We could go on, but the point is, an investment in training, knowledge acquisition and best-in-class standards should be an essential part of any initial discussion with a prospective MSP.  

 For a full list of our certifications, please visit us at www.Source1Solutions.com