MSSPs/MDRs: Conifers’ New Program Helps Modern Security Service Providers Profitably Grow Your Business

Pressure's on for Service Providers in the Age of AI-Powered Cyber Threats

If you're running a managed security service provider (MSSP) or managed detection and response (MDR) business, you already know the pressure. Clients are demanding more, threats are getting smarter, and finding (and keeping) skilled analysts has never been harder. You're expected to deliver better results, faster, all while managing costs and growing your business.

That's no easy feat.

Today’s threat landscape is defined by speed, scale, and sophistication — much of it driven by adversarial AI. Attackers are automating what used to take hours, exploiting blind spots with lightning speed. At the same time, your clients expect fast incident resolution and consistent, accurate results. It’s a tough combination. And in this environment, you’re not just offering protection — you also need to continuously show the value of your service.

We built our MSSP program, and our product, to help you do exactly that.

Why Traditional SOC Models Fall Short

SecOps teams have always faced the classic challenge: how to be both effective and efficient. But as client expectations rise and threats evolve, that balance has become even more critical — and harder to maintain.

Hiring more people to address the problem doesn’t scale— it raises costs and often creates diminishing returns. It becomes a vicious cycle: stretch your team too thin, and coverage suffers. Add more resources, and your margins shrink. That’s not a sustainable path — especially when you’re trying to grow.

We hear this from service providers every day: "We need to do more, with less — and we need to prove it works." As Randy Watkins, CTO of Critical Start says:

“With Conifers it’s possible to maintain comprehensive detection coverage while conducting deep, high-quality investigations, ensuring faster and more accurate responses to incidents.”  

The New MSSP Reality: Faster, Smarter, Streamlined  

That’s where AI-driven security operations centers (SOCs) come in. MSSPs and MDRs can leverage advanced AI techniques as a preemptive strike to help predict and preempt attacks. And AI-powered SOCs will enable providers to optimize their SecOps by reducing false positives and improving incident response times, as well as gain actionable insights and recommendations that strengthen their overall security posture.

What if you could transform your SOC so that it becomes more effective as it scales — without requiring a proportional increase in cost or headcount?

That’s the idea behind our Conifers CognitiveSOC™. We designed it specifically for the needs of MSSPs and MDRs, who must tackle multi-tier incidents (from Tier 1 to Tier 3) with precision and speed, without sacrificing client-specific context or flexibility.

Smart Multi-Tenancy: Scale Contracts, Not Costs

Your clients all have different needs and requirements so why should your SOC be one-size-fits-all? True scalability starts with infrastructure that’s built for the MSSP model. Conifers leverages institutional knowledge—risk tolerance, analyst behavior, historical data — for each of your tenants so their results are more accurate and finely tuned. Centralized tenant management and nested-multi-tenancy capabilities with seamless integration to any tech stack facilitates expansion. According to Rutger de Boer, CTO of DTX

“The Conifers platform’s ability to manage dozens of tenants, each with its own baseline and customer-specific knowledge base, has significantly improved the quality of our operations, reducing investigation times in a way that’s both efficient and effective.” (Read the full DTX case study here.)

Keeping Humans in the Loop — Where It Matters Most

We’re not replacing your analysts. We’re helping them be more efficient so they can focus on more complex tasks.  

AI for SOC platforms like CognitiveSOC are designed to shadow your teams, learn from their behaviors, and improve with every incident. Think of it as a force multiplier — one that reduces noise, surfaces high-risk threats faster, and gives your team more time to focus on what they do best.

When incidents do need escalation, our platform ensures teams have all the context they need across all tiers — 1, 2, and 3 — to resolve incidents, including a timeline of attacker behavior, relevant enrichment, and correlation with known tactics. No more starting from scratch.

Our goal is to help your analysts work smarter, not harder. And it’s working: our customers are reducing end-to-end investigation times by up to 87%, enabling providers to scale and expand their businesses.  

“Conifers is transforming how we run our SOC. Instead of drowning in alerts or hiring more analysts, we now have agentic AI that acts with context, scales our expertise, and adapts in real time. It’s more than what automation provides—it’s intelligence we can trust. With Conifers, we’re delivering faster, smarter, and more precise security outcomes for every customer."

- Edmund How, Founder & CEO, ONESECURE

Prove Your Value, Every Day

You can’t prove value if you can’t measure it. Clients want to see the results of your work — not just that alerts were reviewed, but that risk was reduced. They want to know their investment is making a difference. And let’s be honest: if you can’t show that, renewals get harder.

That’s why CognitiveSOC gives you the tools to tell a better story. From strategic dashboards to detailed performance metrics, you can show how your services are directly improving detection effectiveness, reducing response times, and minimizing business risk.

And because every client has different KPIs, we built flexibility into the system. Whether it’s compliance reporting, ROI justification, or internal SOC metrics, you get the data you need to win trust and grow relationships.

Crawl, Walk, Run: A Realistic Path to AI Adoption

We get it — the idea of "AI transformation" can feel overwhelming. But going all-in from day one isn't the only path. In fact, it usually isn’t the best one.

Many of the MSSPs we work with start in stages. They test AI capabilities against specific use cases — like impossible travel detections or suspicious lateral movement — and expand as they see results. This gradual rollout builds confidence internally, limits disruption, and delivers quick wins that drive adoption.

You can integrate Conifers into your current stack without ripping and replacing anything. Our platform fits in seamlessly—we’ve prioritized compatibility because we know you’ve already made big investments — and we want to help you get more value from them. And the last thing you want your team to spend time on is learning how to use a new tool outside of their existing processes.

MSSP-Friendly, Predictable Pricing

It’s not just about technology. You need a partner who understands the MSSP business model — the operational realities, the competitive pressures, and the need for predictable margins.

That’s why we offer transparent, scalable pricing tailored for service providers. Whether you’re onboarding your fifth customer or your fiftieth, you can plan ahead and avoid unpleasant surprises.

Why MSSPs Choose Conifers

We’re not just solving low-level alert fatigue — we’re helping MSSPs handle everything from Tier 1 triage to Tier 3 response. It’s a full-spectrum solution designed for teams like yours.

When you partner with Conifers, here’s what you unlock:

• Higher margins, thanks to increased efficiencies and predictable pricing  
• ‍Improved client satisfaction and increased retention backed by KPI-driven reporting and insight ‍
• Multi-tier incident support from the simplest to the most complex threats ‍
• Faster response times, with contextual investigations powered by tenant-specific knowledge ‍
• Greater efficiency by leveraging the right combination of AI techniques for each incident analysis for accurate resolution ‍
• Scalable multi-tenancy, making it easy to grow without duplicating effort ‍
• Seamless integration with your existing tools, from SIEM to ticketing

Conifers was also recently listed as a Sample Vendor in a Gartner emerging trends report titled, “Emerging Tech: Emerging MDR Trends to Grow Your Security Service Revenue.” (Gartner subscription needed to access the report.) Topics discussed include the integration of advanced AI for managed detection and response, and use of AI for prioritization and enhanced effectiveness.  

Ready to Scale Smarter?

If you’re looking for a way to scale your managed SOC business profitably and show your clients exactly how you’re reducing risk — without burning out your team or slashing your margins — let’s talk. Or you can request a live demo of Conifers CognitiveSOC.