MSP 501 Flashback: Catching Up with 2019 MSP of the Year Runner-Up Vendasta

Vendasta was the 2019 runner-up for the Channel Futures’ Managed Service Provider (MSP) of the Year award. The digital solutions provider had two reasons to celebrate at the time, having been named as a runner-up in the competitive ranking for the MSP of the Year award, and being among the CIX Top 10 Growth companies, an impressive list reserved for the most promising growth stage companies in Canada.

Vendasta’s win last year was a nod to its end-to-end platform which allows vendors to access new customers with sales, marketing, and operations support that scales.

Vendasta’s George Leith

“The platform acts as a distribution hub for vendors. They are able to deliver products and solutions through a channel of partners, including MSPs, ISPs, VARs, ISVs,” said George Leith, chief customer officer, Vendasta. “The technology allows vendors to easily integrate, package and bring their solutions to the Vendasta market, which now includes more than 30,000 partners selling to 4 million small and medium business customers. The vendors are also able to access other “best in class” digital solutions at wholesale prices to enhance their software and service offerings, which is supported by Vendasta’s in-house, white-label fulfillment team.”

The Impact of COVID-19

Since receiving the award, the world has changed just a tiny bit. Leith describes how COVID-19 has impacted the company. 

“When the pandemic began to bear down on the world, our first concern was to protect our team and help our partners and their clients navigate the disruption,” said Leith. “COVID-19 accelerated change in the technologies that businesses need to survive. More specifically, we’ve seen an unprecedented step function in the need for ecommerce, remote work tools and virtual learning.”

Fortunately, the company has prioritized these needs to deliver a set of free e-commerce and remote work that businesses need. It also has been able to build out an online academy and community where their customers can learn and share best practices.

Since the Win

Since last year, Vendasta has worked tirelessly to build upon the capabilities that won it the award. 

“Vendasta continuously works to improve platform capabilities to ensure vendor success. This is with a focus on expanding and developing channel relationships,” said Leith. “We consider ourselves a ‘next generation’ channel provider. We provide scalable and customizable solutions for marketing, sales, fulfillment, billing and retention activities for vendors as well as partners.”

According to Leith, Vendasta’s partners face the challenge more than ever before to curate and simplify digital solutions for SMBs. The pandemic accelerated SMB technology adoption. Something that was supposed to take a decade had to happen in just a few weeks.

“Our partners are poised to deliver solutions to that market in a meaningful way. We’re proud that our vendors and our technology is part of that.”