The managed services market across EMEA is undergoing rapid transformation as customers demand stronger cybersecurity, unified protection and more resilient IT operations. Ziad Nasr, General Manager – Middle East at Acronis, tells us how MSPs can capitalise on this shift by embracing automation, co-managed security and consolidated platforms to scale profitably and meet rising expectations.
What major shifts have you seen in the MSP landscape across EMEA over the last 12 months?
The biggest shift is that MSPs are now expected to lead on cybersecurity, not simply support IT operations. Customers want a partner who can advise on Zero Trust, resilience strategy and compliance, and deliver those outcomes continuously. At the same time, the complexity of hybrid and multi-cloud environments has grown sharply, which has accelerated the move from traditional IT support to managed detection and response, backup and recovery, and cyber-resilience services delivered under one contract.
Another major change is how MSPs are restructuring their operations. Instead of scaling headcount, they are investing in automation and unified platforms to control costs and remove risk from fragmented tools. This has also driven strong adoption of co-managed security models where MSPs bring vendor-backed 24/7 monitoring and incident response to their clients without needing to operate a full SOC.
Finally, there is growing maturity around service packaging. MSPs are standardising technologies, processes, and SLAs, to improve operational predictability and profitability. This shift has helped them move upmarket, supporting more advanced workloads, while maintaining a sustainable cost structure.
How are MSPs adapting their service models to keep pace with rising customer expectations?
There is a move away from single-function offerings like backup maintenance or antivirus management toward full cyber-resilience services that combine proactive protection, rapid response and assured recovery. Customers now expect outcomes: guaranteed uptime, guaranteed policy enforcement and guaranteed recovery.
MSPs are aligning to this by bundling security awareness training, vulnerability assessments, Zero Trust enforcement, XDR and immutable backups into a standard managed service. This creates recurring value and strengthens customer trust.
Partners are also prioritising visibility. They cannot deliver strong SLAs unless they have the ability to monitor risk and service health across infrastructure, endpoints, applications and cloud. Unified dashboards that blend security and data protection have become essential.
Where do you see the biggest growth opportunities for MSPs within the Acronis ecosystem?
The strongest opportunity is co-managed security, where MSPs deliver enterprise-grade protection without needing large teams or expensive SOC infrastructure. The Acronis platform takes on much of the analysis and automation, so partners can scale their customer base without increasing internal complexity.
Disaster Recovery (DR) is another clear growth driver. More businesses now understand that backup alone is not enough; they need rapid failover to keep customers and revenue intact during outages. MSPs are increasingly turning DR into a premium recurring service, especially where customers operate across borders or must meet data sovereignty requirements.
We are also seeing partners build compliance-ready service offerings on top of our platform. With evolving regulations in sectors such as healthcare, government and financial services, being able to provide simplified compliance management is a meaningful differentiator.
How is Acronis helping partners differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market?
The fastest way to stand out is to remove complexity. The Acronis Cyber Protect platform unifies endpoint protection, backup, Disaster Recovery, patching and management into one solution. This enables service providers to deliver more capability with fewer tools, fewer agents and fewer integration risks. It directly translates into improved margins and lower operational overhead.
Enablement is equally important. Acronis invests heavily in training and certifications through the Acronis Academy and MSP Academy, supporting partners with hands-on technical sessions, business consulting and role-based learning. Partners use this to upskill teams quickly, improve service delivery quality and confidently take on more advanced engagements.
We also provide co-marketing and go-to-market support, including content, campaigns and local events, ensuring partners grow alongside us. Our success model is simple: Acronis only grows if our partners grow.
What are the most common challenges MSPs face when moving toward more advanced security and data protection services?
Skills and resource limitations remain the top barrier. Building 24/7 detection and response capabilities in-house is often unrealistic, so partners risk overextending unless they adopt smart automation and co-managed models.
The second challenge is tool sprawl. When MSPs stitch together five or six vendors for a single customer, complexity increases faster than revenue. The result is configuration gaps, inconsistent policy enforcement and higher operational risk.
The third challenge is customer perception. Many SMBs still view cybersecurity as reactive insurance rather than a continuous operational requirement. MSPs need strong education and outcomes-based service packaging to change that mindset and grow recurring contracts.
How important is vendor consolidation to MSPs today, and how does Acronis support that trend?
It has become a top priority. MSPs cannot afford environments where endpoint protection, backup, DR and patching all operate in silos. Every extra tool is another potential misconfiguration, another training requirement, another ticket queue and another line of cost.
Acronis directly addresses this with native integration, a single agent, a single console and a single protection plan. The benefit is not just productivity, it is risk reduction. It is much harder for advanced threats to slip through gaps when security, recovery and management are aligned in one platform.
What role do automation and AI now play in helping MSPs scale their operations?
AI and automation are now central to operational efficiency. Partners use automation inside the Acronis platform to:
- Identify and block suspicious behaviour before it becomes a breach
- Reduce manual incident triage and repetitive remediation
- Streamline patching, reporting and policy enforcement
- Support technicians with script generation and troubleshooting
This allows small teams to manage hundreds or thousands of endpoints without sacrificing service consistency. Equally important: AI augments human decision-making, it does not replace it. MSPs that combine automation with skilled oversight are the ones that are scaling profitably.
How is Acronis evolving its partner programme to strengthen support for MSPs across EMEA?
We are building deeper regional support and more specialised enablement. This includes expanded training tracks, practical security simulations and localised programmes that align to regulatory frameworks and industry requirements.
We continue to enhance the platform with stronger XDR, more automation, and additional DR failover options, including local data centres for sovereignty, performance and compliance. These capabilities allow partners to deliver advanced security outcomes without increasing internal labour costs.
Finally, we are doubling down on co-managed security, providing the technology and expertise backbone so MSPs can take on higher-value work while we help carry the operational load. The mission is straightforward: enable every partner to deliver enterprise-grade protection with less complexity and higher profitability.
