Improving Profitability For MSSPs Targeting SMBs

In recent years the adoption of cloud services, including security services, has risen significantly. Gartner predicts that spending on public cloud products will reach over $207 billion by 20161 and Frost & Sullivan in its 2012 report on the Global Managed Security Services reported a market size of nearly $7 Billion with a growth rate of over 18% for the forecast period2. Enterprise customers have driven much of the recent growth, but as the market is maturing, the SMB (Small and Medium Business) sector is now beginning to adopt in larger numbers. Research firm AMI anticipates that SMB spending on security services will rise over 10% per year through 20163. The challenge with the SMB adoption rate is that the typical small and medium business expects lower price points, and in turn is pushing for less expensive services with many of the features that Enterprise-sized customers would expect. Standard deployments, including virtualized solutions, can still be expensive and deter the SMB from buying cloud security services. This same expectation can also make it difficult for providers to deliver services at a profitable price point.

Fortinet helps solve these challenges by leveraging Service Provider platforms and a Multi-Tenant VDOM (Virtual Domain) configuration to meet both the SMB and Enterprise service levels and price points. VDOMs enable a single FortiGate unit to split its resources and function as multiple independent units with customized policies and controls. Traditionally, Enterprise customers require highly customizable solutions utilizing a dedicated VDOM per customer to support those requirements. Enterprises are also willing to pay the market price for these services.

By contrast, the SMB sector generally cannot afford to pay what an Enterprise can yet requires similar services. In order to address these challenges many providers have discovered that while SMB customers need the same kinds of services, they often require less customization than enterprise customers.

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