Change is here for the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), and it's a big one.
The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) assessment process isn't just another hoop to jump through. It's a massive market shift that will create clear winners and losers among Managed Service Providers (MSPs).
If you're getting a sense of déjà vu, you should be. Think back to when Electronic Medical Records (EMR) became a federal mandate. The healthcare providers who adapted to the new rules didn't just survive; they thrived, snapping up market share from those who wouldn't get with the program. The CMMC rules going final on November 10th is that exact moment for DIB contractors and the MSPs who support them.
The stakes are high. The choice you make now will define the future of your business.
Three paths forward: Choose wisely
For MSPs, there are three strategic plays on the table.
All in: Dive deep, build in-house expertise, and offer CMMC-ready solutions. It’s a high-reward play that can help you capture those sticky clients and a ton of market share, but it requires a major upfront investment.
All out: Choose not to serve DIB clients and exit this market segment entirely. This is the no-risk, no-reward option. You can focus on other verticals, but you’ll miss out on a lucrative, growing market.
Strategic partner: Focus on what you do best, and partner with others who can take on the more technical engineering and rollout for your clients. This is a moderate-risk, high-reward move that lets you serve DIB clients with expert backup, minimizing your investment.
If you opt out, don't leave your clients hanging
Deciding CMMC isn't for you is a valid choice for your business. But, if you decide not to continue with your existing DIB clients as their requirements shift, you shouldn’t leave them stranded.
Action item: Set up a formal partnership or referral program with a CMMC-capable MSP. This creates a valuable, non-competitive revenue stream for you, while giving your clients a clear path to compliance. It's a win-win.
The CMMC opportunity: Get sticky and grab market share
For MSPs, CMMC rolls out the red carpet for a massive, multi-faceted opportunity.
1. The ultimate "sticky" customer
This is the golden ticket, folks. Under CMMC, if you provide Managed Security Services to a DIB client and help them achieve their L2 CMMC assessment, that client isn't going anywhere.
Why? If a client decides to switch MSPs, it will be considered a significant change that will trigger a reassessment of their entire CMMC posture. Since a CMMC certification is good for three years, that client is heavily motivated to stick with the MSP who got them there and keeps them compliant. For your business, this translates into guaranteed, high-value, multi-year contracts and a huge drop in customer churn.
2. Increased IT/SEC spend in high-compliance industries
Most businesses spend less than 1% of their annual revenue on IT and Security. In high-compliance-focused industries, that figure is usually closer to 7%. Gone are the days of your clients opting out of recommendations. Either they adopt the products and services that you have mapped to their CMMC objective requirements, or they don’t pass their assessment. A passing score is a perfect score of 110/110. No requirements left behind.
3. A market vacuum
A lot of subcontractors and MSPs are going to take one look at CMMC and nope right out. They'll decide it’s too complex, too expensive, or just too much of a headache.
Their loss is your gain. This exodus creates a huge opportunity for the MSPs who are ready to play. With fewer competent providers in the market, the remaining DIB clients will be desperate for help. You'll be in the perfect spot to not only lock in your existing clients but also scoop up new ones whose previous MSPs had to drop them.
The value of preparation: Avoid revenue downtime
The biggest CMMC competitive advantage an MSP can have is preparedness. An assessment with a CMMC Third-Party Assessment Organization (C3PAO) is a high-stakes process. It can go one of two ways.
Scenario A: The unprepared MSP
If you aren't properly prepared, the C3PAO assessment will become a week-long, all-hands-on-deck crisis. All your top techs are pulled from billable projects to find documentation and prove controls in real time. The financial impact here is the opportunity cost of lost billable work, delayed projects, and a totally demoralized team.
Scenario B: The prepared MSP
With solid preparation—like pre-vetting documents and setting up compliance workflows—the assessment goes from a major revenue impact to a minor disruption.
💡 We saw this firsthand in a C3PAO assessment for a large DIB company. Proper preparation cut the live assessment time from an expected 10 days down to just 1 day and 2 hours. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and minimal business impact. That is the value you can bring to the table.
The documentation hurdle
Creating all the necessary CMMC documentation yourself—System Security Plan, policies, procedures—is a colossal task. Experts like DEFCERT estimate that generating these foundational documents alone can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's the value you should attach to a proper CMMC preparation service.
Give your MSP an edge
As you build your strategy, pay close attention to the tech stack. There's a common misconception that security tools must be FedRAMP authorized to support CMMC.
This isn't always true. The final rule changed the requirements. Huntress is categorized as a Security Protection Asset and does not require FedRAMP authorization. When Sensitive Data Mode is enabled, we block our SOC’s ability to access CUI and remain scoped as a Security Protection Asset.
But that’s just half of it. We know the right supporting tech only scratches the surface of what our MSP partners need to pass a Level 2 assessment. That’s why we partnered with DEFCERT to build resources that partners and “Organizations Seeking Assessment” (OSAs) can use to satisfy more shared CMMC requirements. With our initial batch of CMMC resources, we wanted to provide documentation, forms, and job aids covering the CMMC and NIST 800-171 requirements.
We’ve set the standard for CMMC vendor documentation – and we’re giving it out to our partners without any upcharge, saving partners weeks if not months of time, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in CMMC consulting costs.
Ready to learn more? Contact us.
