Undeterred by 'Brexit,' Datto Continues EMEA Expansion

Datto is pressing on with its expansion into Europe, the Middle East and Africa, despite uncertainty over the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union.

The U.K.’s move initially set off panic in stock markets and caused the British pound to drop to a 31-year low, but Datto is taking a wait-and-see approach.

“We hope that will not become increasingly difficult, but if it does, we’re monitoring the situation closely and will adopt and course correct in order to ensure that we’re not reducing the partner experience,” said Andrew Stuart, Datto’s managing director of EMEA.

The backup and business continuity provider, which has EMEA operations headquarters in Reading, England, says it now has nine distribution partners that sell in 38 EMEA countries.

For now, the emphasis remains on maintaining and improving the resources and support for partners, Stuart said.{ad}

“Ultimately, we want to continue building the headcount here. We have to hire native German speakers, Italian, French in order to – from a technical support perspective as well as field perspective – support those partners remotely,” he said.

Stuart said Datto has relied on local distributors who are MSP-focused and have complementary products.

“They understand the market already. They know how to best position our message and provide that education and bring our product to the table,” he said.

Although Stuart said the product demands in Europe tend to be the same as those in the U.S., he said there is often a difference in the “competitive landscape.”

“They may have been more educated toward local-only solutions or building your own solution by pulling different parts from different vendors, rather than the turnkey approach that I think is more prevalent in North America,” he said.

Education has been a big priority for Datto, especially educating about the value of business continuity solutions over traditional backup.

In the meantime, Stuart said his company will not change its strategy for the U.K. region and is actually aiming to triple its U.K. headcount eventually. He said it all fits into the goal of making sure EMEA partners have the support they need.

“We want to ensure that wherever you are in the world, you’re getting the same experience and that you’re not having a subpar partnership because you have to be within a certain territory,” he said.

The so-called “Brexit” won’t happen overnight, which means that Stuart and Datto have a couple of years to solidify plans, but he pointed to upcoming EU directives that he hopes the U.K. will be able to match.

“We’ll just pay close attention to that and communicate that to our partners in terms of data compliance requirements and ensure that we are leading that kind of education,” he said.

Datto has also expanded to New Zealand and Australia this year.