Kaspersky MSP growth plans are delivering

Security player Kaspersky has shared details of its progress in expanding its channel and managed service provider numbers.

For the past three years, the firm has been running an MSP Foundation project and as a result of providing subscription models and more flexibility, it has seen its managed service relationships almost quadruple and revenues from those partners deliver fourfold growth.

Security vendors have actively been courting MSPs because there is growth on that side of the channel and more customers are looking for subscription services. Kaspersky shared analyst numbers that forecast a doubling in the managed service market to reach $557.1bn in 2028, compared with $243.3bn last year.

Kaspersky started its MSP Foundation project back in 2018 using an array of tools to offer automated billing and slicker interactions between the vendor and its partners. It added a licence management portal and partner programme in 2020 and has continued to develop more pay-as-you-go services for MSPs to take out to customers.

The firm has also invested in technology that can be taken on by MSPs, including endpoint detection and response tools, and cloud data protection options.

At the same time, it is also becoming clear that MSPs need to be in a position to offer more security and customers are demanding better protection. Kaspersky reported that sales from partners last year grew by 75% year on year,

While noting the increase in partners and the fourfold growth that has been delivered, the firm also made it clear that it takes retention seriously and has also made sure that it is adding and not losing channel partners and MSPs.

“We’ve come a long way and our partners note this,” said Veniamin Levtsov, vp corporate business at Kaspersky.

“For further MSP development, we will focus even more on process automation, portal functionality enhancement, and aligning more products with the MSP-readiness concept. These initiatives will support the great promise of transforming our resellers into managed security service partners.”

The vendor shared some views from its MSP base, including from Vincenzo Biasi, managing director, Levigo Systems, who said the Foundation project had helped it deliver a decent option for SME users.

“This is a very attractive model that allows us to serve small customers with reasonable, competitive prices,” he said. “This has positive effects for everyone. The corresponding licence management portal has been around for almost a year and offers everything we need to manage our licences, to book or cancel, scale up or down – everything can be done in such an easy and independent way. Self-service is very important here.”

This time last year, the vendor was warning partners about the risks of choosing to work with an endpoint protection player that failed to meet the mark.

The vendor highlighted the move by some next-generation and firewall vendors to present themselves as the answer when it comes to EDR as a result of acquisitions they have made, often of born-in-the-cloud endpoint specialists.

Kaspersky warned that some of the products on the market from those vendors did not provide the full depth of endpoint protection platform offerings, with features including device and application hardening, and could leave customers exposed to risks.