Kaseya MSP Survey: Growing Importance of Automation, Cybersecurity Remains Top Challenge
MSPs will need to be up to speed on their security offerings to meet SMB demand.
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The top five services that MSPs intend to offer in 2023 fall under the cybersecurity umbrella, covering identity and access management (IAM), security awareness training and dark web monitoring, according to Kaseya. With cybercrime exploding, the percentage of respondents who back up their customers’ SaaS applications, such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Salesforce, increased to 83% from 78% in 2022.
About one-third of MSPs evaluate their threat landscape monthly and 35% evaluate quarterly, while only 11% do so annually, and a mere 1% never do so. Technicians said enhanced security services recorded the most growth in the last 12 months. Executives reported it as second place. For executives, subscription-based managed services took the top spot, with business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) services featured among the top four service categories.
Lack of integration between solutions continues to hinder MSPs‘ daily operations and productivity. In the Kaseya survey, 39% of respondents reported the biggest obstacle to business growth is the inability of technicians to maximize software usage. About 63% of executives said that integration enabled them to take on more clients and expand their business, with 54% saying fewer technicians were needed to manage the workload. Almost one-half of executives also said integration helped them cut costs.
Not surprising, about 60% of both executives and technicians surveyed are dissatisfied or neutral when it comes to work-life balance, according to the Kaseya survey. Managing everyday mundane tasks causes them to struggle with getting their workload under control and even end up experiencing acute burnout. This can be alleviated by automating some of those mundane tasks.
The primary challenges MSPs anticipate are gaining more customers as the MSP space intensifies (35% of executives), and dealing with advanced and sophisticated security threats (21% of technicians). Supply chain issues are leveling off. The percentage of respondents who said supply chain impact is significant dropped from 35% to 28% in 2023.
More than one-half of the technicians reported break-fix as their most time-consuming activity. However, it is only the third most lucrative revenue stream according to executives. Subscription-based managed services is the top revenue generator according to 68% of executives, and the second most time-consuming activity, according to 43% of technicians.
About a third of the respondents said they get between 1% and 25% of their revenue from co-managed IT services. Another 29% said they get between 26% and 50% of their revenue from it.
About 51% of respondents are interested in participating in some form of M&A activity. Of this group, about 14% said it is their primary growth strategy. Last year, only 36% of the respondents were bullish on it.
Mitch Morgan, CEO of New Charter Technologies, a Denver-based MSP, said automation and cybersecurity are top priorities.
“For our business at New Charter, we see several top priorities in serving our clients,” he said. “We seek to incorporate automation to make our client service more efficient for the benefit of our client. Keeping our clients secure is a top priority. Also, engaging (and leading) our clients’ digital transformation journey is a big focus in helping them to be more competitive and align technology to their business objectives. While it is difficult to manage all these priorities, we are fortunate that we have the depth of capabilities and scale to make these a reality for our clients.”
Mitch Morgan, CEO of New Charter Technologies, a Denver-based MSP, said automation and cybersecurity are top priorities.
“For our business at New Charter, we see several top priorities in serving our clients,” he said. “We seek to incorporate automation to make our client service more efficient for the benefit of our client. Keeping our clients secure is a top priority. Also, engaging (and leading) our clients’ digital transformation journey is a big focus in helping them to be more competitive and align technology to their business objectives. While it is difficult to manage all these priorities, we are fortunate that we have the depth of capabilities and scale to make these a reality for our clients.”
The latest Kaseya MSP survey shows automation is a must-have technology, and cybersecurity is the No. 1 challenge facing their clients.
This Kaseya survey sought viewpoints from both managed service provider executives and MSP technicians. Of the respondents, executives comprised 37% of the pool while technicians made up the remaining 63%. MSP owners, partners, vice presidents and directors came under the executive group while the rest were grouped as technicians.
Kaseya polled more than 1,000 MSPs from the Americas, EMEA and APAC.
Looking for more? Check out our analysis of the recently completed Channel Futures Quarterly MSP Sentiment Survey. |
Kaseya’s Mike Puglia
“This report drives home the importance of automation and integration to make MSPs more productive, efficient and profitable,” said Mike Puglia, Kaseya’s chief strategy officer and general manager of security products. “Cybersecurity will continue to be a pressing issue. And MSPs will need to be up to speed on their security offerings to keep pace with SMB demand.”
Kaseya MSP Survey Key Findings
The key findings center around automation, cybersecurity and integration:
About 90% of respondents hailed automation as a crucial technology for their business. That’s because it improves efficiency. It also allows them to take on more clients and generate more revenue by automating common processes like endpoint management, monitoring, patching, ticket resolution and even cybersecurity.
More than half of executives (64%) and technicians (54%) picked automation, including auto-remediation of tickets, as their top remote monitoring and management (RMM) feature.
In a year-over-year comparison, there is a 15% jump in respondents who chose cybersecurity as their clients’ top IT challenge.
About 65% said most or all of their clients have asked for cybersecurity advice.
About 90% agree integration between core applications is critical to their business. It helps them streamline their processes, reduce duplication of efforts and automate repetitive tasks.
See our slideshow above for more key findings from the Kaseya MSP survey.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Edward Gately or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
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