Start Tech: "I thought we were 80-90% there. We weren't."
Ian Groves runs a 23-strong MSP in Shropshire with Cyber Essentials Plus and IASME Assured Service Provider. He still landed at the halfway mark on 144 Assurix tasks. Here is what he found and what it changed.
I really thought we'd be 80 or 90% there. As it is, we weren't.
Ian Groves is Managing Director of Start Tech, a 23-strong MSP based in Shropshire in the West Midlands, hitting 25 years in business. He runs the company without a vertical focus, leaning into cyber security on the basis that it crosses every sector and every boundary. Start Tech already held Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus and IASME Assured Service Provider before starting the Assurix assessment.
The challenge: Explaining how you're different when every MSP sounds the same
To the businesses Start Tech talks to, every MSP does the same thing. Ian knew that wasn't true. Start Tech had built 25 years of operational maturity, three certifications and a genuine commitment to going further for clients. In a competitive sales conversation, none of that showed up.
"One of the biggest issues we have, and I'm sure a lot of MSPs have, is trying to explain how we're different from the next MSP and the next MSP and the next MSP." - Ian Groves, Managing Director, Start Tech
Three pressures driving the decision
- Sound-alike proposals - Proposals sat alongside competitors as if they were equivalent. Buyers with no way to evaluate quality compared price tags instead.
- Losing deals to lesser MSPs - Ian knew his team went further for clients than the MSPs they were losing to. Without proof, that knowledge stayed inside the room.
- Three certifications and still no next level - Already holding CE, CE Plus and IASME Assured Service Provider, Start Tech needed something with more depth and breadth.
144 tasks. He thought it would take a couple of weeks.
When Ian got onboarded onto the Assurix platform, he saw 144 tasks. Confident in 25 years of operations, three certifications and a strong team, he told his colleagues they'd knock it out in a fortnight.
They landed at the halfway mark. Around 70 tasks had real substance behind them. The rest had gaps, not because Start Tech was running badly, but because the evidence, the documentation reviews, the proof hadn't been pulled together in one place.
"I took for granted that our hodgepodge level of controls we've put in place pulling from forever. I really thought we'd be 80 or 90% there. As it is, we weren't. We had too much fragmentation, we had too many holes, and a lack of real control. This has plugged those gaps and really levelled us up, which is why I sleep much easier at night." - Ian Groves, Managing Director, Start Tech
It made the business safer. Then it started winning work.
Start Tech's Assurix assessment did not end with internal improvements. The same evidence that gave Ian confidence in his controls became an outward-facing tool in sales conversations.
"How many tools make you more secure, make you sleep easier at night, but ultimately solve that problem every MSP seems to have, which is I don't have enough leads, I don't win enough conversations, I don't know how to differentiate myself? This actually delivers value in both worlds for me." - Ian Groves, Managing Director, Start Tech
Ian's advice to other MSPs
"Proof, not promises, is the slogan for Assurix, and I absolutely love it, because it simplifies this rather creative and elaborate system into basically what it does, in a really simple way." - Ian Groves, Managing Director, Start Tech