Barracuda MSP must be doing something right globally its partner base has increased by 280% in two years; recurring MSP security revenue has grown by 120% year on year and it has been expanding its portfolio. Jason Howells, EMEA director, says the opportunity is huge across Europe.
“There is absolutely a clear demand and the reason why we made this strategic move in 2015 was because our customers, particularly the smaller customers, were saying they didn't want to make the investment in owning and buying the technology. I still think we're at the very beginning of our journey. If I'm completely honest we've all got so much more to do,” he tells IT Europa.
“We have seen a phenomenal growth. It's much more than 100% growth year over year that we're looking to achieve. Data protection is obviously a much-needed and continually-needed ability for a managed service provider, so we will continue to innovate.”
The aim seems to be to be more of a foundational vendor for managed service providers. Barracuda MSP has acquired Managed Workplace, a security-centric remote monitoring and management platform for managed service providers, from Avast.
But even with different products in the portfolio his focus right now is strongly around email protection and email security. “It's just making sure there are several layers of security in place and I think that will continue. I think that's the easiest way for the criminals to go and earn their way. And I think they will continue to evolve and it might change slightly, and become more intelligent as we go. I think 2019 will continue to be focused around e-mail protection as people are migrating more into cloud.”
And he is setting up for growth in EMEA: “We are an international team on the basis of office; our focus was kind of northern Europe and we've been extremely successful particularly in the UK. Now we're now looking to go deeper and I have dedicated teams that are focused on regions.”
“So we're just getting a bit more granular with our focus. What comes with that is more for the partners. So they'll have dedicated account management from a sales perspective, a marketing perspective and also much more resource.”
And what can Barracuda MSP do to help MSPs with the problem of all appearing the same to customers – how do they differentiate themselves?
“What it always comes back to is you should never get into a price war and certainly not undersell yourself because it probably will result in you not delivering the kind of service that you want. Work with a vendor that is able to provide a bunch of solutions or products that are extremely relevant in the marketplace and then you build your service. And I think a multi-tiered approach into those services is what can differentiate you and your competition.”
He highlights Managed PhishLine, a service that helps MSPs provide phishing simulation and security awareness training to their customers. “So what that allows us to do is to work with many service providers that don't necessarily have the resource or the capability to provide that additional layer. They can do so working with us because we do it as a fully managed service. For an additional small fee per user per month they're able to offer many more layers that perhaps that competition can't offer because they're not working with the right vendors to allow them to do that.”
His optimism also comes from the recognition that there are still thousands of MSPs out there that the message hasn’t reached yet. A dedicated team on recruiting and onboarding will support his plans for continuing 100% growth.
