In today’s business landscape, the need for compliance is more pressing than ever. With regulations constantly evolving, cyberthreats continually escalating and data breaches becoming increasingly costly, businesses are under more pressure than ever before to meet regulatory standards — and many of them are looking to their managed service providers (MSPs) to guide them to compliance success.

Managing compliance can be a double-edged sword for MSPs. On one hand, non-compliance exposes both MSPs and their clients to serious risks, from data vulnerabilities to financial penalties. On the other hand, it’s a complex, time-consuming task requiring constant oversight. MSPs can’t afford to neglect it, and risk losing customers to competitors if they do.

Compliance is labor-intensive, with manual processes draining resources and slowing operations. However, automation offers a solution. By leveraging automated tools, MSPs can transform compliance from a burdensome task into a streamlined, profitable service. As Jon DePerro, VP for FedRAMP and Compliance Solutions at Kaseya, puts it, “Compliance isn’t easy, but automation makes it manageable and profitable for MSPs.”

Automation simplifies compliance management by reducing human error, improving efficiency, speeding up accurate reporting and providing consistent, measurable results. It empowers MSPs to offer compliance services at scale, reducing the time and resources required while delivering high-quality results. Ultimately, adopting automation enables MSPs to handle compliance efficiently, turning a potential pain point into a valuable revenue stream.

The reality of compliance management for MSPs

Compliance management is a daunting challenge. The traditional, manual processes required to ensure regulatory adherence are often labor-intensive and difficult to scale. Tasks like collecting and organizing data from multiple systems, verifying configurations against ever-changing regulations and generating detailed reports can become overwhelming as the MSP’s client base grows, elevating the stress levels of an already overstretched IT team.

The complexity of compliance requirements, including regulations like The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), adds significant difficulty. Navigating these evolving standards requires expertise since even minor oversights can lead to fines and reputational damage. For many MSPs, these challenges deter them from offering compliance services.

However, automation is the key to overcoming these hurdles and making compliance scalable and cost-effective. With automation tools, MSPs can streamline manual tasks, reduce human error and ensure compliance is monitored continuously, allowing them to focus on more strategic activities that drive business growth. No MSP can afford to spend hours manually managing compliance for each customer. Automation turns this burden into a manageable and profitable service, enabling MSPs to stay ahead of the game and capture the revenue opportunities compliance services offer.

Why compliance matters for MSPs and their clients

The escalating demands on businesses to ensure compliance with a growing number of regulations offer MSPs an opportunity to deepen their client relationships. From data protection laws like GDPR to industry-specific requirements like HIPAA, SMBs are turning to MSPs, their trusted technology advisers, for help understanding these complex standards and what they need to do to achieve compliance.

The growing number of regulations, like GDPR and HIPAA, presents MSPs with an opportunity to strengthen client relationships as SMBs turn to MSPs for help navigating complex standards and achieving compliance.

For SMBs, the stakes are particularly high. Regulatory fines for non-compliance can easily reach millions of dollars. Reputational damage is a potential side effect of non-compliance too. Customers and partners may lose trust in a company’s ability to secure sensitive data and meet industry standards if the company has known compliance problems or, even worse, a data breach. MSPs could face legal exposure and reputational damage, potentially costing them customers and business opportunities, if they fail to help their clients achieve compliance.

The competitive advantage of automated compliance services

As the demand for compliance management grows, MSPs who offer automated compliance services will be ahead of the curve, making it easy for them to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. Automation in compliance management removes the time-consuming, error-prone manual processes, making compliance cost-effective and scalable.

Offering automated compliance services not only reduces the operational burden for MSPs but also presents an opportunity to create a healthy recurring revenue stream. Clients will value the reliability, efficiency and risk mitigation that automation brings, strengthening the MSP-client relationship. They will also gain peace of mind knowing that they have expert help to conquer compliance.

By integrating automated compliance solutions, MSPs can turn a regulatory challenge into a business advantage, positioning themselves as trusted, proactive partners who help clients stay compliant while growing their business.

The essential role of automation in compliance

Automation is a game changer for compliance management. “Automation is mandatory to do it efficiently and profitably. Without automation, compliance will never be a profitable offering for MSPs,” says Jon DePerro. These examples offer insight into the benefits of automating compliance management:

• Automation allows MSPs to prepopulate data, streamlining inventory management, user insights and security tracking. By automatically gathering and updating information, MSPs ensure compliance data is accurate and up to date, freeing up time for higher-value tasks like risk assessment and strategic compliance initiatives.
• Automation reduces human error, ensuring reliable, audit-ready compliance documentation. It enables MSPs to provide timely, proactive services, boosting client trust and positioning them as key partners in navigating regulatory requirements.
• Automation’s true value lies in its ability to minimize the time spent on repetitive tasks, allowing MSPs to focus on strategic activities. By automating manual processes, like data collection, configuration verification and report generation, MSPs can improve efficiency, accuracy and scalability as their client base grows.
• Automated alerts for unsupported devices enable MSPs to quickly identify and address issues, helping them avoid fines or penalties by staying ahead of compliance gaps and ensuring clients meet regulatory standards.

As these examples illustrate, by automating key compliance tasks, MSPs can easily make compliance a profitable service instead of an intimidating chore. Streamlined workflows, reduction of human error, proactive risk mitigation and the smooth delivery of top-quality service are just a few of the benefits that MSPs and their customers enjoy from putting automation to work as a compliance tool.

Steps MSPs should take to automate compliance

Jon DePerro emphasizes the importance of a structured approach to automating compliance. Here are the essential steps MSPs should take to ensure they and their clients gain the maximum benefit from implementing an automated compliance management system.

1. Assess the current environment: The first step is to inventory all hardware, software and configurations in the client’s environment. This assessment identifies which assets need monitoring, securing or updating to meet compliance requirements. Understanding the full landscape is crucial to identifying what needs to be addressed to move that client toward compliance with regulatory standards.

2. Define scope and responsibilities: After assessing the environment, define the scope of compliance management. Automation simplifies this by outlining MSP-managed tasks, like security monitoring and reporting, versus tasks for clients or vendors. Clear roles will reduce confusion and ensure smoother compliance management.

3. Continuous monitoring: Compliance requires ongoing vigilance — and automated tools like Network Detective provide continuous monitoring. These tools help MSPs detect compliance risks, such as non-compliant devices or misconfigured software, allowing them to address issues before they escalate.

By following these steps, MSPs can automate compliance management, streamline their workflows and ensure they remain proactive in managing their clients’ compliance needs. Automation reduces the manual effort involved while enhancing the efficiency and profitability of compliance services.

Challenges of compliance and how automation can overcome them

Managing compliance can be a daunting prospect for both MSPs and their clients. However, automation offers powerful solutions to address common compliance challenges.

Challenge 1: High labor costs without automation

Compliance tasks, such as data collection, verification and reporting, can be incredibly labor-intensive. Without automation, MSPs must rely on expensive manual labor. That can be extremely cost-prohibitive and make it challenging for MSPs to scale their operations to accommodate more clients.

Solution:

Automation reduces manual workload and makes compliance scalable. By automating tasks like data gathering, configuration verification and report generation, MSPs can save time and lower costs, enabling them to take on more clients without compromising service quality.

Challenge 2: Risk of missing non-compliance alerts

Manually monitoring for non-compliant assets is a labor-intensive task that relies on people — and people make mistakes. Missing a critical non-compliance alert can be a fast path to penalties, fines and reputational damage.

Solution:

Automated tools provide continuous monitoring and instant alerts for non-compliance, keeping MSPs informed of their clients’ status and enabling immediate response. This ensures critical alerts are not missed, reducing the risk of costly oversights.

Challenge 3: MSPs’ hesitancy due to lack of expertise

Many MSPs may be wary of offering compliance services because it is such a complex field that requires specialized knowledge. Navigating various compliance requirements can feel overwhelming, and without the right tools, it’s easy to make mistakes or overlook important details.

Solution:

Automation simplifies compliance for MSPs by providing essential tools like pre-configured frameworks, audit templates and real-time status updates. This enables MSPs to confidently manage regulatory requirements and offer comprehensive compliance services.

By leveraging automation, MSPs can address these challenges and others that may crop up head on, giving them an edge that enables them to improve efficiency, reduce costs and feel confident that they’re providing comprehensive service.

Best practices for implementing compliance automation

Implementing compliance automation is a strategic move, but to gain the maximum benefit from it, MSPs need to keep some best practices in mind. Here are some best practices to ensure you get the most out of your compliance automation tools:

1. Start with a baseline assessment

Before implementing automation, conduct a thorough scan of all devices and systems to establish a compliance baseline and identify gaps. This ensures automated processes align with the client’s infrastructure, reducing the risk of oversight.

2. Define roles and scope

Clearly define roles and responsibilities with clients to avoid confusion and ensure accountability in compliance management. Specify MSP tasks (e.g., security monitoring, reporting) and client responsibilities. Automation helps clarify roles by providing visibility into compliance statuses, but alignment is key from the start. Jon DePerro underscores this point, “Scope matters. Automation helps MSPs stay on top of which assets are in-scope and align with compliance requirements.”

3. Leverage compliance training

Even with automation, human oversight is essential. Train your team to effectively use compliance tools, interpret data, respond to alerts and adjust settings. Ongoing training ensures they maximize the system’s value and minimize compliance risks while delivering quality service.

By following these best practices, MSPs can ensure the smooth and effective deployment of an automated compliance solution like Kaseya’s Compliance Manager GRC, which will equip them to help their clients overcome compliance obstacles.

Key compliance automation tools MSPs can use

As compliance continues to become more critical as well as more convoluted, smart MSPs are investing in powerful tools that harness the power of automation to efficiently manage compliance. Here are three essential compliance automation tools that can help MSPs stay ahead of regulatory requirements:

1. Compliance Manager GRC

Compliance Manager GRC is an automated governance, risk and compliance tool that helps MSPs efficiently manage compliance for multiple clients from one platform. It automates burdensome tasks, like reporting, audit preparation and vulnerability management, enabling MSPs to delegate responsibilities to clients or third parties and track their progress.

Jon DePerro highlights the solution’s value: “Compliance Manager GRC has a great feature to assign tasks for areas outside MSP responsibility, like QuickBooks or point-of-sale system security.” By automating and overseeing external compliance tasks, Compliance Manager GRC reduces administrative burdens and ensures consistent compliance across the ecosystem.

2. VulScan

VulScan is an advanced vulnerability scanning tool that seamlessly integrates with Compliance Manager GRC. VulScan automates the scanning of networks and systems, continuously monitoring the environment for potential vulnerabilities and identifying any weaknesses. This gives MSPs the opportunity to act proactively to close those gaps before they can be exploited. VulScan helps MSPs prioritize remediation tasks, ensuring their clients remain compliant with a wide variety of regulations, such as HIPAA, PCI DSS and GDPR.

3. Network Detective Pro Network Detective Pro is a powerful network assessment and monitoring tool that plays a crucial role in maintaining compliance. It automates key routine compliance tasks like verifying patch statuses, checking for outdated systems and ensuring multifactor authentication (MFA) is enabled where required. With automated scans and reporting, Network Detective Pro allows MSPs to efficiently identify compliance gaps, track changes in real-time and generate detailed reports for audit purposes.

With these robust tools, MSPs can simplify compliance by automating tasks and gaining real-time insights into clients’ compliance status. This enables MSPs to meet client needs, drive revenue growth and build stronger relationships.

Compliance Manager GRC enables MSPs to navigate compliance challenges with ease

Compliance management can be overwhelming, but with the right tools and automation, MSPs can simplify tasks. Compliance Manager GRC automates key processes, assigns tasks efficiently and provides real-time insights, turning compliance into a scalable, profitable service.

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