SaaS
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risk and business outcomes rather than feature lists and discounts.” Greg Jones, senior VP, MSP Success, Kaseya, says resellers need to look behind the application. “Who is the vendor? Where is the data? How is it protected? What compliance standards are in place? What access does that application have to other systems? What happens if that vendor disappears tomorrow? What governance needs to be in place around how people use it? AI makes all those questions even more important,” he says. “Anyone can potentially call themselves a SaaS vendor now. Give somebody a couple of hours with AI and they can build something that looks impressive. But what you can’t necessarily see is what goes on behind the scenes: security, compliance, governance, resilience, support and data protection. “That’s where the MSP and reseller opportunity is massive. Our value can’t just be finding another piece of software. It’s understanding the customer’s business, helping them choose the right technology and making sure they can use it safely and effectively. That’s what being a trusted adviser should really mean.” Future Growth in the SaaS market is expected to continue in the coming 12-18 months. Jordan expects continued consolidation towards unified platforms. “SMBs are pushing back on tool sprawl and are looking to reduce the number of suppliers in their stack,” he says. “For a small business, juggling multiple logins, bills, renewals and vendors wastes valuable time. “Vendors that bring management, networking and security together in a single platform will win more business. Services and support are also increasingly important. As core features become standard across vendors, the deciding factor becomes who can be trusted to deploy a solution,
run it day to day, and fix it quickly when something goes wrong. For resellers, that means leaning in to recurring, services- led business models, such as managed services and proactive monitoring and away from one-off transactions.” Anthony says AI will likely become a much more integrated part of SaaS. “Businesses will also be more demanding about what earns its place in their SaaS estate and what it is delivering back to the organisation,” he says. “This takes the channel well beyond supplying subscriptions, with channel partners helping end customers make better decisions about the technology they already have, where new capability can add something and what to prioritise. Distribution supports that with the vendor relationships, platforms and enablement that help channel partners continue to develop their propositions.” Greg says AI and vibe coding are making software easier and faster to build. “This means we’re going to see a huge number of new SaaS applications coming to market, including some incredibly niche solutions solving very specific business problems,” he says. “Some will be brilliant and some probably won’t be around very long. “That’s why we need to look at the next 12 to 18 months through more of a security lens. We’ve spent years making technology easier and faster to consume, and that’s a good thing. But as the barriers to building and buying software continue to come down, we can’t allow the standards around security, compliance and governance to come down with them. “SaaS is going to continue to grow and AI is going to accelerate it, and that provides MSPs and resellers with a huge opportunity. The more choice and complexity customers face, the more they need someone they trust to cut through the noise, understand the risks and help them make the right technology decisions for their business.” n
Contributors
Joel Burnett
adventoris.com
Greg Jones
kaseya.com
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We’re going to see a huge number of new SaaS applications coming to market, including some incredibly niche solutions solving very specific business problems... ...Some will be brilliant and some probably won't be around very long.
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