When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast most of Manhattan’s financial district was protected — northern New Jersey did not fare so well. “For one of our clients, the building was blocked off, roads were inaccessible, it was a complete blackout,” said Raffi Jamgotchian of Triada Networks, talking with CompTIA Community Director Miles Jobgen in this MSP Spotlight.

“We invoked their DR and had them spun up in a few hours,” he said. What he remembers most though is that a bunch traders came into the Triada office during recovery so they could continue to work and take orders. It’s not typical for a managed services company to open their doors like that, but as far as building customer relationships goes it was priceless.

“It adds a little bit of stickiness,” Triada said. “They’re not about to leave you for a couple dollars of savings because they know, when push came to shove, you helped them out.”

In addition to building customer relationships and incorporating cyber into disaster and recovery plans, this conversation covers how emerging technologies like IoT, big data and blockchain are playing out in the investment world and how to function as a small MSP when there’s a target on your back. One thing he sees other MSPs missing: keeping your own house in order.

“For MSPs, there’s a lot we can do to protect ourselves. Many of us don’t do it, but it’s an unfortunate part of the real world today,” Jamgotchian said, echoing the message of the Security Community’s theme for 2020: Be prepared. “It’s not a matter of ‘if’ it’s a matter of ‘when,’ and you need to do everything you can to make sure you’re the last possible target for that to happen.”

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