Business currently is actually good says Barracuda MSP’s Jason Howells, Director, International MSP, and for some MSPs who can look at their working practices and vendor partnerships, it could be even better on the other side of the crisis. He was speaking to IT Europa online (pictured)
“Barracuda is well placed to help and we’re being called on to help at many different levels. Scramble is the best way to describe what the MSPs were involved in in March as their business and their customers were forced into remote working. We saw a lot of changes in ways people asked for help – it was a huge effort on getting the right kit in the right places, and it may not have been deployed in the most effective and secure manner. So we saw short sales cycles, firewalls, SSL, VPN were in huge demand
“The working environment is now different, but the “new normal” does not mean we have spare time. I’ve never been on so any calls or had so little time in the day.”
So it is supporting MSPs and how to help their customers, but it is a bit crazy, he admits. For example, MSPs help desks’ activity was up by over 500%.
This has now moved into more of a settled stage as things calmed down and the MSPs are able to think about how things were deployed and how effective the work has been. A lot of the MSPs are themselves small businesses, serving small business, so are now thinking about the implication for their customer and themselves.
“Now partners are moving to an optimising view of what is going on. The reality is that some companies are not going to survive. MSPs are doing their best to help, but they need to understand the deployments and check compliance, policy and issues - a lot to think about as we work through the new normal.”
The research for last year’s MSP day found that one of the issues holding the industry back was trust. “We are still looking for ways to build trust. Customers being forced to move to remote working and not having the skill in-house to do so and manage the new environment will lead to more managed services. The opportunity once we are through this will be great.”
His advice to MSPs is to work with the right vendors to do that and take advantage of the opportunity to service a lot more customers in the future. “But relationships need to be chosen wisely. A lot of MSPs have jumped onto the opportunity to offer security capabilities; security is an example of where the expertise just may not exist in medium sized companies and so it is an example for MSPs who can work with vendors to drive their business.”
MSP Day - 21st May – which Barracuda MSP organises and support, will be the third year of the event and it will still be a timely recognition and celebration of the work that MSPs do. “I feel it is important especially now that MSPs have been called on so much. We should celebrate that. It has changed – we are going global and it will be virtual and we will have some interesting research on the state of the MSP market then, as well as some fun things, adding value to our MSPs.”
“Barracuda is well placed to come out this fighting fit and we will be positioning ourselves as even stronger the other side. But we don’t know what is around the corner. We just have to help each other as much as we can. When things calm down, we will be in a stronger business driving forward,” he concludes.
