What is Compliance as a Service?

Businesses increasingly rely on subscription-based IT solutions to stay technologically relevant without significantly increasing costs. This trend positions you, as a managed service provider (MSP), for significant growth by enabling you to expand further with in-demand compliance services.

This article explores what Compliance as a Service (CaaS) is and how you can benefit from the surging demand for regulatory solutions.

MSPs and the aaS model

The “as-a-service” model has transformed how small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) access technology. The shift to subscription-based models provides SMBs with flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, while at the same time avoiding the burden of significant upfront investments.

With spending on your services expected to rise by 5% annually between 2024 and 2025, there's nowhere this trend is more pronounced than in the growth of MSPs.

You, as an MSP, are the definition of the as-a-service provider. Your suite of IT solutions, all delivered through a subscription model, empower SMBs to bypass the substantial costs of maintaining in-house IT teams, scale their services precisely to their needs, and leverage enterprise-grade tools without the hefty capital investment.

What Is Compliance as a Service? (CaaS)

With its flexibility, the as-a-service business model enables MSPs to capitalize on another growing market demand: compliance.

Compliance, at its core, involves a company's adherence to all applicable laws, regulations, and internal policies, which can vary significantly by industry and geographical location. Your clients face the same challenges with compliance as they do with IT: they lack the specialized expertise, financial resources, and personnel necessary to effectively navigate and implement compliance frameworks and requirements internally.

Just as you manage your clients’ IT operations and infrastructure, you can minimize their client’s compliance burden through compliance as a service. Affordable MSP compliance provides all the same benefits of outsourcing IT functions, such as reduced costs, improved scalability, and access to specialized expertise, ensuring that businesses remain compliant without straining their internal capabilities.

The Compliance-as-a-Service SKU

A CaaS package typically includes these six things

Multi-factor authentication
Backups
Security awareness training
Policies and procedures
Antivirus
Assessments

Many MSPs already provide these services. Meaning that, adding CaaS to a stack is as simple as repackaging the services you already provide, give or take some requirements. Policies and procedures, for example, might not be in the typical MSP wheelhouse, but it’s something you’re absolutely capable of (especially with our help!)

Selling Compliance Services

Operational demands may make it challenging to maintain robust compliance and security, but neglecting these critical areas exposes organizations to significant risks. Data breaches and non-compliance can lead to fines, penalties, lawsuits, and irreparable reputational damage, all of which far exceed the cost of investing in proactive measures.

This is how CaaS presents a compelling value proposition. By outsourcing compliance to specialized experts, businesses mitigate risk and protect their bottom line.

Not to mention that offloading the responsibility of compliance to a dedicated team frees up internal resources, allowing leaders to focus on core business operations and drive efficiency. This ultimately enhances productivity, making affordable MSP compliance a strategic business solution.

Benefits of Compliance as a Service for MSPs

With all this talk about how clients benefit from outsourced compliance, you’re probably wondering: “What about the MSP?” Here are all the ways that you stand to benefit from offering affordable MSP compliance:

Meet Demand

As the regulatory requirements get more complex and data privacy becomes more important, the demand for compliance solutions will continue to grow. If you proactively build compliance expertise now, you position yourself as the go-to partner in a rapidly expanding market. You will find no shortage of clients lining up for this essential service in the very near future.

Reduce Liability

With increased scrutiny of third-party suppliers, and MSPs often acting as such for regulated clients, detailed documentation of compliance activities provides evidence of due diligence, especially as they may be held accountable in security breaches. While not eliminating all risks, this structured approach significantly reduces potential liability compared to less formal compliance support.

Get Competitive

CaaS allows you to differentiate yourself in a crowded market, moving beyond the traditional service stack and into a high-growth sector. This specialized offering also opens doors to winning contracts in heavily regulated industries like healthcare and finance, where compliance is paramount.

Build Trust

By diligently addressing regulatory requirements, MSPs help clients avoid costly penalties and operational disruptions, enabling them to focus on strategic growth. This dedication to mitigating risk, saving money, and facilitating streamlined operations reinforces the MSP's role as a trusted partner, building a foundation of confidence and strengthening the business relationship.

Reduce Costs

Shift from reactive crisis management to proactive compliance. Consistently monitoring and addressing regulatory requirements helps you avoid the expensive scramble of last-minute audit preparations, and also minimizes the risk of costly data breaches and subsequent legal liabilities.

Create (Recurring) Revenue

CaaS provides a robust and predictable revenue stream, built on the inherent nature of ongoing regulatory requirements. Because compliance is not a one-time fix, CaaS offers a consistent, recurring revenue model that not only adds a valuable service to your MSP's portfolio but also establishes a long-term client relationship.

CaaS Built for MSPs

Compliance Scorecard is a software as a service (SaaS) compliance solution built for MSPs, empowering them to master regulatory complexities and become their clients' trusted compliance advisors. Below are just some of the ways we turn you into a compliance champion: .

Have the risk conversation: Perform comprehensive assessments and deliver an easy-to-understand visual map of a client's compliance-related risks.
Access built-in regulatory expertise: Policy packs give you pre-built, customizable templates for essential compliance policies, significantly accelerating the process of establishing robust regulatory frameworks for your clients.
Create a compliance culture: Functions for policy authorization, e-signatures, and reminders ensure client-wide accountability and effectively shift the responsibility of policy adherence to the client organization.
Integrate with your tools: Eliminate manual data entry, streamline workflows across, and centralize security, asset management, and review processes with integrated platforms and tools you already use.
Review the impact: Verify program effectiveness and make data-driven decisions to ensure ongoing regulatory adherence and prevent costly violations with detailed, exportable reporting.
Prepare for audits: Simplify audit preparation with a centralized document library, detailed audit trails that track all compliance-related actions, and reporting features that generate comprehensive compliance reports.
Scale with clients: Simplified and efficient policy management, asset governance, and risk assessment means that, as your client base grows, our program scales with you.

Become a Compliance Expert with Compliance Scorecard

Tap into the rapidly growing compliance market by adding compliance as a service to your stack. Establishing expertise now will position your MSP as a leading authority in a market poised for explosive growth, securing a steady stream of high-value clients and recurring revenue for years to come.

Compliance Scorecard is the ideal solution to empower MSPs to master these complexities and become trusted compliance advisors. Ready to transform your MSP and capitalize on the CaaS opportunity? Book a demo and see how Compliance Scorecard can elevate your services today.