How the right MSP offerings help you optimize and grow

Managed service providers (MSPs) are vital in helping financial institutions manage IT operations and compliance — but the right provider can take that role further.

An MSP that brings increased capability and industry specialization can go from managing your IT infrastructure to modernizing it, acting as a strategic partner in identifying the solutions you need to optimize workflows and enhance the customer experience. And they understand the latest updates to the cyberthreat landscape and regulatory priorities so your operations can stay secure and compliant.

When you’re working with the right MSP, you’re not just getting support for your servers — you’re getting support for your business.

Here are four ways MSP offerings can help you hand off operational tasks and grow your institution:

1. Modernizing your workplace

To implement the latest solutions, increase productivity and better reach customers, you need the right infrastructure. An MSP can be a valuable source of insights into how your organization can create a modern workplace environment.

The right MSP can help you update your IT infrastructure by switching out legacy systems and implementing cloud infrastructure — including helping you address the resulting security concerns. Software as a service (SaaS) platforms come with built-in security features, but they often leave you responsible for establishing things like permissions and access control. Your MSP can help you build security strategies for cloud services and integrate new solutions with your core banking system.

2. Meeting customer needs

Customers expect services to be faster and more accessible across industries. If your financial institution wants to stay competitive, it needs to evolve the customer experience.

An MSP can help by taking on a more strategic role, providing guidance on an IT road map that supports technologies to help you:

• Use dashboards to track key customer metrics.
• Create a better omnichannel experience.
• Use customer data to effectively cross-sell and increase wallet share.

Partnering with an effective MSP can help you better strategize on how your institution can improve workflows and productivity so that you can deliver the experience your customers expect.

3. Enhancing your cybersecurity

Cyberattacks continue to increase in frequency and severity, and your MSP should be helping your institution keep pace.

An effective MSP can help you:

• Be proactive: In addition to addressing server performance issues, your MSP should be proactively looking for indicators of compromise. They should employ 24/7 monitoring that can quickly identify and research any anomalies so that potential compromises can be solved before they escalate.
• Stay updated: As AI continues to increase the frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks, your MSP should not only be helping your institution adapt but also adapting its own capabilities. An effective MSP has the tools and infrastructure in place to help them identify indicators of compromise faster, such as advanced endpoint detection and response and AI-powered threat correlation.
• Meet regulatory expectations: An MSP with industry specialization can help ensure your institution meets key regulatory priorities in areas including ransomware, operational resilience and incident response. For example, it’s crucial that financial institutions use an MSP that can retain security event logs if an incident does occur.

4. Providing crucial talent

For most institutions, establishing 24/7 security operations in-house is neither cost-effective nor viable.

Employing enough staff to provide that level of support would require substantial resources. And attracting and retaining staff would be equally challenging, given the current labor shortages and the relative lack of complexity and challenge financial institutions provide for these roles.

Outsourcing these positions with an MSP provides you with the necessary staff and infrastructure without the cost of hiring. They can also help guide your institution at the executive level with fractional or virtual CISO services.

How Wipfli can help

Wipfli’s managed services go beyond IT operations and compliance to help your financial institution evolve. With industry specialization and deep cybersecurity capability, we can provide your institution with the solutions and strategy you need to optimize operations and further your growth.

Contact us today to learn more about how our MSP services can transform your institution.