Kaseya’s Fred Voccola on Integration 'Lies,' Cyberattacking 'Scumbags'
Voccola gave insight into some of his keynote points, and shares lessons learned from the ransomware attack in July.
October 26, 2021
![Fred Voccola spoke with MSPmentor this week shortly after ConnectWise accused Kaseya of lying during sales calls to poach Fred Voccola spoke with MSPmentor this week shortly after ConnectWise accused Kaseya of lying during sales calls to poach](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltd3b774f8ea5ba89b/652440560b78883b49cf8213/fredvoccola364a9741-2x3land1_1.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Fred Voccola spoke with MSPmentor this week, shortly after ConnectWise accused Kaseya of lying during sales calls to poach customers. Full story.
“It’s sort of the ‘take this pill and you’ll lose 20 pounds’ mentality. Integration is the ideal state. It is the dream of overworked IT professionals, particularly IT professionals that are generalists or multifunctional. If you’re using five different technologies to get something done, it’s a pain in the butt. For example, just imagine simply logging into five different things — let’s say it takes 45 seconds each. Forty-five times five is three-and-a-half minutes, 10 times a day. That’s 45 minutes a day just logging into stuff.
“Now apply this example to the IT world. It is much more pronounced, because a lot of times they’re chasing ghosts. And they have to use different technologies to chase the ghost. So when they chase them to the first room, and they have to go into a new technology, they have to find that first room again and then attack. It’s not integrated. It’s very hard.
“Providers are so eager to hear that something is integrated because it gets rid of the ghost chasing. So, integrated is a word, but there’s no common definition for it. So often, companies integrate a little bit, and from that, the customer gets a little bit of value. The problem is, they think what they’re getting is one plus one equals three. But what they’re actually getting is one plus one equals 2.01. So from the beginning, promises don’t meet expectations. Customers end up thinking, “you knew what I wanted to hear, and you let me down. It’s kind of like telling a young kid, ‘we’re going to go buy all the candy in the world’ and it just turns out to be one single Snickers bar.
“What happens is that marketing people get overly aggressive, and the salespeople overpromise. The desire is there to help, certainly, but it just ends up falling short. So, all this to say, if the same vendor doesn’t own both products, they can’t force the integration because you can’t make the investments to be dependent upon each other.
“It’s also very hard to find qualified talent. So, getting people to be able to be more efficient is huge. There is a critical point where efficiency is so needed, integration becomes the buzzword. When you’re when you really want something, you’re more likely to hear what you want to hear. So when vendors say ‘it’s integrated/cross integrated,’ folks need to do a gut check and think, ‘Wait a minute, how can you and another vendor be integrated?’
“So we make sure that each of our R&D teams, as a huge priority, builds the integration at a true application architecture level. And we will not break those integrations. In fact, we make them deeper and deeper. So we’re moving more toward one product, with different features, opposed to eight products that have weak integrations that break.”
“Transformations in the industry are happening so quickly that SMBs are spending more and more of their revenue on technology.
“The narrative is that for small to midsize businesses, for every incremental dollar that they spend on their business, the best return that they will get for that dollar spent is an investment around some form of technology initiative. Better technology and solutions up the ante.
“If you’re a gym, are you going to invest in a bunch of Valpak coupons to get more customers? No. You’re going to create an online boxing class for people that want to work out at home as a part of their membership, to better return. The returns on investing in tech for SMBs are better than doing just about anything else. That means if you’re investing in technology, it has to be managed, it has to be secured.
“Say I’m a dental office, and I’m going to invest in a new digital X-ray machine. With this new machine, my results come right away. The old x-ray machine just took the picture and you had to wait 15 minutes, and I could only have four people in my chair per day. With the digital machine, I can get eight people in my chair. I can see twice as many people in a day, and generate twice as much revenue. That X-ray machine is a computer. Who manages that computer? The MSP that supports that dental office. So by investing in that automated technology, you’re essentially up-leveling your position in the market.
“Most people in the world do not see these types of ‘up-levelings’ or transformations happen. But it’s a necessary value add for SMBs.”
“We talk a lot about security and ransomware attacks. When I talked [in my keynote] about the fact that these attacks are existential threats to our way of life, I wasn’t trying to be dramatic to get people to buy more stuff from us. It’s true.
“These cyber scumbags have vast avenues. What’s happened is we’ve created the perfect environment for a very smart person to make a ton of money committing crimes that they’ll likely never get caught doing.
“Law enforcement doesn’t have the resources, so it’s the MSPs that are protecting these small to midsize businesses from the people who will make a ton of money by breaking into their systems. So, simply put, this needs to be the No. 1 focus for everyone across the industry.”
Voccola, in his keynote on day one of the conference, said that there has been a steady increase in sophistication in the M&A process. It’s not that new, but now it’s a question of how to do it well. M&A is spiking, but it’s important to think of it as part of a rollup strategy. The M&A market for SMBs, in particular, is the second-fastest growing market in the world. The attributes of recurring revenue and margins creates the perfect type of asset.
“Everything has been accelerated because of the pandemic, and mergers and acquisitions are no exception.”
“We need to get better. Kaseya has to, and will get better. It is super humbling when something [like this] happens because it’s our job. It’s on us. It was not the largest cyberattack in history, as many tried to spin it, but it was too many all the same. Our compartmentalization/architecture of our platform, and the playbook that we had immediately went into play, capping it at 56. Again, that is too many, but it stopped it from being worse.
“Another lesson learned is that we should never underestimate how smart and how innovative these scumbags are. The money and the effort that we spend on our software product security is more than most of the software companies in the MSP sectors. Unfortunately, some very smart people have very good incentives to try to make money. We have to match the innovation of these really smart people. Not to give them a compliment, but they are super smart people.
“If I robbed your house and kidnapped your cat, and I said, “I’ll give it back to you if you wire this money to my Chase account, I’m going to get caught, right? But it’s not like that anymore — it’s all anonymous. Kaseya is not a political company, but anonymous currencies must be addressed. We will take that message forward, not because we’re a political entity, but because it’s in our customers’ best interest. It becomes a question of responsibility at that point. It’s not political. It’s the welfare of U.S. citizens — the world, if you want to expand it that far.
“We love small midsize businesses, and we love the multifunctional IT people. Everything we do is for them. We make a lot of mistakes. Unfortunately, I’m sure we will make a lot more. Hopefully we do two things right for every one thing wrong and we can make our customers more successful. Happier.”
“We need to get better. Kaseya has to, and will get better. It is super humbling when something [like this] happens because it’s our job. It’s on us. It was not the largest cyberattack in history, as many tried to spin it, but it was too many all the same. Our compartmentalization/architecture of our platform, and the playbook that we had immediately went into play, capping it at 56. Again, that is too many, but it stopped it from being worse.
“Another lesson learned is that we should never underestimate how smart and how innovative these scumbags are. The money and the effort that we spend on our software product security is more than most of the software companies in the MSP sectors. Unfortunately, some very smart people have very good incentives to try to make money. We have to match the innovation of these really smart people. Not to give them a compliment, but they are super smart people.
“If I robbed your house and kidnapped your cat, and I said, “I’ll give it back to you if you wire this money to my Chase account, I’m going to get caught, right? But it’s not like that anymore — it’s all anonymous. Kaseya is not a political company, but anonymous currencies must be addressed. We will take that message forward, not because we’re a political entity, but because it’s in our customers’ best interest. It becomes a question of responsibility at that point. It’s not political. It’s the welfare of U.S. citizens — the world, if you want to expand it that far.
“We love small midsize businesses, and we love the multifunctional IT people. Everything we do is for them. We make a lot of mistakes. Unfortunately, I’m sure we will make a lot more. Hopefully we do two things right for every one thing wrong and we can make our customers more successful. Happier.”
Last week, Kaseya had its big Connect IT Global 2021 conference in Las Vegas. Each day began with opening keynotes, with CEO Fred Voccola delivering some powerful messages, assessments and predictions.
Channel Futures sat down with Voccola at the show to dig a little deeper into some of his key points. Click through our slideshow above to get his insights.
You’ll want to read his take on last summer’s ransomware attack now that there’s been time to reflect.
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