Kaseya CEO: MSPs are dealing with the biggest issues in SME IT

The opportunities for managed service providers are expanding as more customers struggle to deal with increasing complexity and look for external expertise.

MSPs have been traditionally strong in the small business space, supporting those customers that have no IT department to lean on, but increasing mid-sized operations, with a team of 5 to 10 trained staff are also looking for help.

That trend has played into the hands of those firms supplying MSPs with the tools to do their jobs and Fred Voccola, Kaseya CEO, is expecting that to continue because of the increasing demands on firms to digitally transform their operations.

"We talked to the customers and we listened and the problems we are solving are now arguably the biggest problems in SME IT," he said.

"Small businesses that don't have IT are now technology first and for a 20 person company it is not feasible to hire an IT person it is better to hire an MSP," he added "Mid-sized businesses might have some internal IT but the needs are becoming so complex it goes beyond the IT team's capability."

"Many MSPs that used to serve small businesses are now moving upstream to serve the mid market. You have to work out what customers need," said Voccola.

As a result of the changes at a customer level the opportunity for the MSP is increasing and for Kaseya it has seen the volume of business through managed service providers increase strongly year-on-year, giving the firm the confidence to target a $1bn turnover in the next four to five years.

"In the next six months we will grow at a rate that's double the market. It is about helping customers deal with the multifunctional workflow," he said.

Kaseya has been building its IT Complete platform to add the multifunctionality that customers are after and the firm recently gained $500m in its latest round of funding.

Voccola said that money, which underlined firmly the support that the firm could gain in the market, would be used to continue to develop its platform and could be used to fund further M&A activity.

The firm reported more than $250 million in annual bookings in 2018 and made four acquisitions – including Unitrends, Spanning Cloud Apps, RapidFire Tools and IT Glue – to add more depth to the IT Complete platform.