How MSPs Streamline Microsoft 365 Compliance and Multi-Tenant Management Using Baselines

Running a managed service provider (MSP) business today means balancing customer demands for always-on, seamless service with mounting pressure to reduce costs, maintain compliance, and scale operations securely.

Yet, customers expect 24/7 support, instant onboarding, and self-service options, while MSPs face shrinking margins, rising operational costs, and a widening IT talent gap. The global managed services market is projected to grow 13%, reaching nearly $595 billion by 2025, presenting MSPs with an unprecedented opportunity to expand. However, growth brings its own challenges: Profitability remains a top priority for MSPs, and scaling securely while protecting customers’ demands requires robust, automated solutions that enforce consistent security and compliance across all tenants.

Baseline configurations for Microsoft 365 offer a way to simplify management, enhance security, and scale services efficiently. They ensure MSPs can confidently meet these challenges and deliver consistent, reliable service.

What Are Microsoft 365 Security Baselines?

Microsoft 365 Security Baselines are collections of pre-configured security settings and best practices designed to protect core services like Office 365 apps, Entra ID, Intune, and Azure. These baselines help IT teams:

• Apply consistent security settings
• Speed up onboarding and adoption
• Meet compliance standards
• Reduce risky misconfigurations

However, these baselines are just a starting point. Every organization has unique needs, and MSPs managing multiple tenants face the challenge of customizing and applying these baselines consistently across diverse environments.

The Multi-Tenant Management Challenge

Manually managing multiple Microsoft 365 tenants quickly becomes costly, inconsistent, and risky. Each environment comes with its own logins, quirks, and workflows, making it nearly impossible for MSPs to maintain uniform policies at scale.

The result: Configuration drift, slow onboarding, compliance gaps, and greater exposure to security threats. Some of the most common pain points draining MSP resources include:

• Scaling complexity. Tracking configurations, licenses, and security policies across many clients becomes exponentially harder, increasing the risk of costly errors.
• Cost management. Uncontrolled license sprawl and inefficient resource use push up expenses, squeezing MSP margins.
• Rising compliance demands. Navigating regulations from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and data localization laws strains resources and raises risks.
• Customer frustration. Users expect fast resolutions and seamless self-service, not long waits for support.

This outdated approach doesn’t scale. It reduces margins, frustrates customers, and blocks MSP growth.

The Scalable Solution: Do More with Less Using Baseline Management

The Baseline Management module in AvePoint Elements enables MSPs to do more with less by automating and standardizing Microsoft 365 configurations across all customers. Whether onboarding, auditing, or scaling, MSPs can transform governance from manual and reactive to automated and strategic.

By unifying local, hybrid, and Azure tenants into one platform, AvePoint eliminates complexity, accelerates service delivery, and reduces operational costs, building a foundation for smarter, sustainable growth.

Five Ways AvePoint Baseline Management Simplifies Multi-Tenant Configurations

With enhanced Baseline Management, MSPs can define, enforce, and maintain trusted configurations for tenants faster and more effectively, including:

1. Multi-Tenant Deployment

Easily deploy baseline configurations across all Microsoft 365 tenants from a single platform. Centralized control provides detailed audit trails, real-time compliance monitoring, and rapid remediation of configuration drift. 

Business impact: MSPs reduce errors, save time, and simplify management across multiple tenants.

2. Accelerated Onboarding

Onboard new customers faster while enforcing consistent security and compliance policies across all environments. Automation ensures every tenant starts with the same best practices. 

Business impact: Accelerates onboarding by up to 60%, reduces compliance gaps, and builds stronger customer trust.

3. Centralization and Standardization

Consolidate management into a single platform to enforce uniform security and compliance settings across tenants. Eliminate portal hopping and guesswork. 

Business impact: Saves engineering teams multiple hours per week, improves response times, and enables scalable governance.

4. Automation at Scale

Automate routine tasks such as user provisioning, password resets, license assignments, and offboarding. Free your team to focus on high-value, billable work instead of repetitive manual tasks. 

Business impact: Reduces manual workload by up to 85%, boosts operational efficiency, and drives revenue growth.

5. Continuous Monitoring and Reporting

Detect and remediate configuration drift in real time while generating clear, auditable compliance and security reports. Provide customers and regulators with transparent evidence of governance. 

Business impact: Minimizes security risks, reinforces client trust, and supports long-term retention and new business growth.

AvePoint’s Advantage Over Microsoft’s Built-In Tools

Unlike Microsoft’s native tools, such as Secure Score, Intune, and Entra ID, which are designed for individual environments, AvePoint Elements was built to manage dozens or even hundreds of tenants efficiently. Native tools offer limited automation and lack the scalability MSPs need to enforce consistent security and compliance across multiple clients.

AvePoint Elements takes a different approach. From a single, centralized platform, MSPs can:

• Deploy baselines across multiple tenants simultaneously.
• Automate governance and security enforcement at scale.
• Continuously detect and remediate configuration drift in real time.
• Allow baseline exceptions to meet unique tenant needs without losing standardization.

AvePoint also supports multi-stack baselining, enabling MSPs to apply baseline management across multiple Microsoft 365 and Azure services simultaneously, a capability that sets it apart from other vendors.

The result: No more portal hopping or manual oversight. IT teams save valuable hours each week, freeing time to deliver consistent, secure, and scalable services that fuel long-term business growth.

Driving Revenue Growth with AvePoint Elements

AvePoint Elements doesn’t just streamline operations — it unlocks new revenue opportunities for MSPs. With Elements, providers can:

• Increase revenue by up to 40% by packaging compliance and security as premium, billable services.
• Cut manual work by 85% through automation of repetitive tasks.
• Boost retention with transparent, auditable reporting that builds customer trust.
• Scale operations to serve more customers without adding headcount.

In today’s competitive market, the thriving MSPs will be the ones who standardize, automate, enforce secure defaults, and scale smarter. AvePoint Elements gives partners the platform to do exactly that.

Ready to scale your services? Grow revenue. Cut risk. Deliver security at scale. 
Book your demo today to see Baseline Management in action.