technologyreseller.co.uk 33 continuing to invest in our innovation portfolio and all the operating procedures and capabilities that we need to be a public company – all the things you do to prepare from a financial management and a risk management perspective, systems implementation and that type of thing. TR: Is the $100 million investment in EMEA announced at DattoCon Europe part of that focus? RS: As I shared in Dublin at DattoCon Europe, EMEA is our fastest growing market and we see tremendous potential in partnering with MSPs to continue to build a thriving SMB sector over here. We’ve made an investment in local data centres, in expanding into new offices – opening an office in DACH – in localising our offering and in local R&D teams. We have a big engineering population in Krakow and a big engineering population in Ireland, and we’ll continue to invest heads in engineering here locally. Obviously regulation in EMEA is distinct and it’s important that we stay ahead of it, but a lot of our global R&D centres are here too. We see great talent in EMEA and are excited to contribute to its tech sector. TR: You’ve talked about some of the challenges that MSPs face. What more generally are your first impressions of the MSP community? RS: I spent a lot of my onboarding time talking to dozens and dozens of MSP leaders and I’ve very much enjoyed my interactions with them. They are very passionate about serving small businesses, very committed to that, but frustrated by the technology solutions available to them. They want more and they deserve better. In general, the space has an opportunity for more innovation and I’m excited for Kaseya to come in and fill some of those gaps. Then, they are really looking for partnerships – not wanting vendors but deep partners who are going to help them grow, help them identify new business lines to add, help them activate new customers dramatically faster, and help them create really connected end-to-end customer experiences. TR: How are you filling the gaps that you have identified in the market? RS: From my conversations with MSPs it’s clear there are so many things that are still manual that should not be manual. businesses today, and it’s actually been very hard for enterprises to take advantage of it, let alone small businesses. Small businesses are going to need partners in this, not just solutions, but partners who can help them navigate. And we’re going to partner with MSPs to help ensure that they’re the ones at the table driving that transformation. So, I do think some of what MSPs are doing today will be automated, but that’s an opportunity for them to get into the next horizon of impact. TR: How difficult is it for MSPs to provide that sort of consultancy? RS: Today, it’s very difficult and that’s why they’ll need a partner like Kaseya. Number one, we’ll be working on building the agents that are verticalspecific, which small businesses will ultimately need, and curating them for MSPs in a marketplace that they can easily tap into and provide to their SMBs. These will all be built in a very secure, scalable way. Then, we’ll also be doing all the enablement for MSPs to ensure they are at the forefront of that capability. That’s a huge part of our growth agenda. The change and the transformation required and the need to iterate and invest in AI mean it won’t be easy for MSPs. That’s why we’re committed to partnering with them on this journey. TR: Kaseya is open about being on an IPO journey. What does that involve and how will it affect Kaseya and its customers? RS: I think it will continue to be very good for MSPs, because to thrive in the public markets, we need to be one of the most consequential innovators in technology. Public markets reward tech companies when they don’t just have growth today, but have durable, consistent, repeatable growth and growth rates that accelerate over time because their innovation portfolio is so deep. We intend eventually to thrive as a public company and that means we have to be one of the top innovators for our customers, which will be good for our MSPs. In terms of our journey to get there, we’ve already reached a scale (more than $1.5 billion in annual revenue) that makes us very material for public markets. This also means that our investment pockets are the deepest in the industry so we’re able to go really deep in innovating on behalf of our customers. The next few years will be about TR: To what extent, are you planning to develop the smaller side of your business that sells directly to the IT departments of SMEs? RS: We exist because small businesses need help managing IT, security and AI, and that’s never been more important than it is today, especially as they prepare themselves for the AI transformation. But we believe one of the best ways to help small businesses is through MSPs. Small businesses don’t just need great software, they also need trusted advisors to make it happen. That’s a very important part of our strategy, and why we are so excited to be the top partner to MSPs. We do have a direct offering to small businesses when they choose to manage IT in-house, through their own IT department, and we do serve them in those cases. But for the majority of small businesses that choose to outsource we work through MSPs because we believe that’s the right solution for small businesses. TR: As AI automates more tasks, do you think small businesses might be able to bring more stuff in-house and what impact might that have on MSPs? RS: We’re very excited about what this transformation means for MSPs. We believe MSPs will look very different in the next few years to how they look today, and we’re excited to play a lead role in helping them get there. In the next 12 months, MSPs will fully automate so much manual labour, and Kaseya will be the lead partner in helping them do that. There’s tons of room for innovation in automating tier one repetitive tasks through the introduction of a very sophisticated digital worker capability and we’ll also help MSPs automate their growth activities so they can grow more and attract new customers, again with what’s possible with AI. We think MSPs, even in the next 12 months, will be dramatically different to what they are today. Then, to answer your question, in the coming few years, we think that once they have done all that work to automate all those repetitive tasks, MSPs will have the capacity to enter the next wave of trusted advisory for small businesses, which will be enabling small businesses to take advantage of what’s possible in AI and business intelligence. Right now, enterprises are generating all the attention around agents and AI. It’s not a top conversation for small INTERVIEW continued...
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