Autotask's International Expansion: Exec Provides Progress Report, Best Practices

Autotask Community Live! last month featured lots of news about the professional automation service (PSA) company’s new user interface, its Autotask Endpoint Management (CentraStage/RMM integration) strategy and other plans going forward. But another big piece of Autotask’s success over the past few years has been the company’s international strategy.

MSPmentor caught up with Mark Banfield, VP of International, at the Autotask conference in Miami last month to get some background on the global expansion plan and an update on its progress. Here’s what I learned.

Banfield joined Autotask in 2011 to drive the international effort and is based in the company’s London office. He leads a team of 140 people globally. One hundred of those are in the UK and the others are split among Munich, Sydney and Beijing.  When he joined the company, less than 5 percent of the new revenue every month came from his international group. Now more than 55 percent of new revenue comes from it.

“Europe is dominated by small businesses,” he told me. “We’ve got a first mover advantage here.”

Two keys to success for American companies expanding globally

So what has Autotask done right in establishing a global presence? Banfield told me that one of the keys is to hire local people to establish relationships with customers.

“I’ve worked for a number of American companies that want to be international,” he told me. “The biggest mistake they make is they put an American in to lead that market. The right approach is to hire local people to run it.”

Another big factor in making sure the international strategy works is communication.

“The other challenge is to link back to the U.S.,” he said. “You need to have a strong relationship with the people back at the home office. One of (Autotask CEO) Mark Cattini’s mantras is to hire good people and give them the right tools and support.”

Autotask has employed the same approach in opening offices beyond the beachhead location in the UK, Banfield told me, with strong local leaders heading up those efforts, too.

It’s all about the relationship

And if you want to go up-market and work with larger providers, it’s essential that you visit them and adapt how you do things locally. Banfield calls this “The Richmond Experience” after a particular incident that proved to his team that was the only effective approach.

“You have to develop the relationship,” he told me.

Expanding the UK office

And Banfield also said that Autotask was doubling down on its investment in the UK office with an 8,000 square foot expansion. His office is adding a second floor to its facility, which will be dedicated to training customers and consulting for customers.

“Our customers invest in us, so we invest in them. We are making significant investment in this facility,” he said.

Autotask is also putting a new 6,000 square foot office in Australia. (Investment there must be driving success, too. I met several Australian MSPs at the Autotask Community Live! event last month.)

Autotask gets multi-currency support

Banfield has also gotten support on the product side. For instance, Autotask is adding  multi-currency support to its professional services automation platform that lets service providers bill customers in their local currency. The feature is helpful for service providers with customers across multiple countries and currencies. For instance, he said one of his MSP customers has a customer with offices in the UK, Belgium and Dubai.

We’ll be staying in touch with Banfield and keep you updated on Autotask’s global strategy. Stay tuned.