01732 759725 24 ASK THE EXPERTS We ask five experts for their opinions on key trends shaping the managed services market (see panel) intelligence, so they start deploying more stuff down to the customer, saying ‘put these sensors in, do this, do that’. Because there’s more stuff being added to the internet, there’s more opportunity for MSPs to manage more things. In our recent survey, the number one growth driver was more endpoints. There’s more for MSPs to manage because they’re getting bigger customers coming to them, and more to manage because of the cloud and the infinite computing power that’s happening. We are also seeing more MSPs being created. Other types of technology provider are transitioning to managed services, because the word is out that ‘recurring revenue drives business value’. And we’re seeing growth through merger and acquisition activity. Private equity businesses are coming in and buying up companies, combining them, growing them. We’re predicting about 13% - 15% growth in the market next year, driven by rising demand for cybersecurity, automation and outsourcing. Lorenzo Fiori, Marketing Manager, Nanosystems Reports show that more than 50% of EU and US digital companies approached managed services providers in 2021, to improve operational efficiencies and operating expenses; to support their focus on workload and core business; and to reduce security risks by taking advantage of MSPs’ high-level skills. These trends have been accelerated by the pandemic emergency, which, through remote working, triggered the need for automation, business continuity and endpoint security. Expenditure on managed services is growing significantly for SMEs thanks to new working methodologies like a full or hybrid home office, distributed teams and so on. Greg Jones, Vice President of Business Development, EMEA, at Datto, a Kaseya company The IT landscape has always done well on the back of an economic downturn; it gives us a springboard because ultimately SMBs are looking to reduce their spend. Now is a great time for MSPs to go in and say ‘we can help you do more with less, we can drive business processes, we can make changes’. On the back of COVID-19 many businesses became more profitable and productive just by automating some processes or using technology to drive a bit of change. And it doesn’t have to be cutting edge or bleeding edge technology. It can be quite mundane technology, like Zoom or Teams. We’re seeing that from big players as well. Fortune 500 companies are saying ‘Actually we need to leverage more with MSPs. We aren’t as agile as some smaller businesses. How can we engage with the MSP community and be more agile and drive more digital transformation?’. Phil Sansom, Director Business Development and Alliances, at Barracuda MSP Because of the difficulty of getting decent techs in the IT space, we’re seeing a lot of businesses being pushed towards the MSP space. MSPs have the same challenge, but automation and all the skillsets they have play into that rather nicely. MSPs are getting interest from businesses that they wouldn’t have been in discussions with before and that skill shortage is a big reason why. Another trend is the growing focus on cybersecurity. When I started out with Kaseya in 2002, it was all about the move to automation, moving from a break-fix model to automated managed services, and a lot of that relates to doing more with less. What attracted me to Barracuda is the journey they are on to help MSPs move towards to a cyber-centric offering, the next phase in more automated managed services. Some smaller MSPs we’re working with are almost revamping their service offering, focusing on cyber security perhaps at the expense of other services. It’s almost a case of ‘we can’t spread ourselves too thinly and do everything, so maybe we need to be a bit more precise about our offering’. Some are choosing to be more cyber-centric as a result. 1 A growing market ‘There’s never been a better time to be an MSP’ is a common refrain in the technology sector. Over the last 15 years, from the 2008 banking crisis to the pandemic, the technology sector has shown remarkable resilience in not only surviving but prospering while other sectors have suffered. Today, the twin threats of high inflation and a stuttering economy, choked by energy costs and supply chain disruption, are contributing to a very uncertain economic future. MSPs are not immune to these dangers – rising prices and product shortages are a problem for them, too, and no one likes to see their customers struggling. However, our experts are confident that the MSP market will continue to grow, as organisations push on with their digital transformation and look to third parties for expertise and guidance. Craig Fulton, CCO, ConnectWise We’ve been surveying our partners recently and 47% are expecting to see 15% or more growth next year. The other 53% are seeing growth of between 0% and 15%. So, what are the trends driving that? Number one, there’s a global economic downturn that people are admitting is happening or not admitting is happening. Whether companies are seeing a downturn or not, they’re preparing for one, so in the MSP space, larger companies that our partners haven’t seen in a while are contacting them to outsource their IT needs and drive down costs. Cybersecurity continues to be a driver. Another big one is the number of devices being connected as you see more things move to the cloud and computing power become limitless. Take accounting software as an example. In the past, that would be loaded on a server on prem and the partner would manage that one device for the customer. Well, that accounting company has now moved their software into their cloud. Once it’s in their cloud, they can do so much more data collection and artificial Technology services for MSPs Lorenzo Fiori Nanosystems Robinder Koura GoTo Craig Fulton ConnectWise
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