MANAGED SERVICE PROVIDERS
Maximising opportunities Managed service providers have often been the unsung heroes of the office tech sector, but now there is an increasing appreciation of the value that they provide. But how can MSPs ensure they maximise the opportunities they find in a changing marketplace?
As technology plays an increasingly important role in many businesses, especially smaller ones, more and more are outsourcing their tech requirements to managed service providers (MSPs). Indeed, Gaidar Magdanurov, president at Acronis, notes that Canalys estimates that the channel’s total managed services revenue will grow at least 12% in 2024. “Based on interviews with Acronis partners, we see the potential for growth as well, as more small and medium businesses are outsourcing IT infrastructure management to MSPs,” he says. “Given the shortage of IT professionals on the market, MSPs can offer lower costs and higher quality. The most powerful driver of demand for outsourcing IT infrastructure management is a lack of cybersecurity talent. “Therefore, the demand for managed services will continue to grow, specifically the market for managed cybersecurity, leading to more MSPs establishing cybersecurity practices or setting up partnerships with managed security vendors.” Greg Jones, VP of business development, EMEA at Kaseya, agrees, saying that the company is seeing more demand for services
from MSPs as small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need help, support and guidance traversing the technology landscape. “No matter what vertical a small company operates in, they are all in the technology space now we’re in the digital age,” he says. Nick Bannister, vice president sales for Arrow’s enterprise computing solutions business in the UK, Ireland, Central & Eastern Europe & ANZ, adds that the ability to manage costs and cashflow, as well as ensuring access to the latest technology and security to protect against the increasingly complex digital landscape are also reasons for the growth in demand for managed services. “Managed services are attractive to as they are flexible and scalable and can grow with business demand, while allowing the customer to focus on core activity reducing the need for some in-house IT skill sets, which can produce additional cost savings,” he says. The right stuff Markus Rex, head of SYNAXON Managed Services, says that demand for managed services continues to grow – but that customers are looking for certain criteria in a provider. “What our partners and their customers want are simple services that are affordable and easy to manage,” he says. “Most smaller resellers want to provide managed services such as backup, endpoint security and desktop services to customers, but don’t have the capacity or set up their own operation. “This is why we created our range of ready- to-deploy services that enable our partners to start small and grow their managed services business without having to make any up- front investment in technical resources or infrastructure. “The concept of managed services is well understood in the B2B market now, yet a lot of smaller business customers remain wary of putting the responsibility for IT functions into the hands of a third party. That’s why it makes sense for partners to start
Gaidar Magdanurov
acronis.com
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