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Automation already making a difference for MSPs
The focus is all on artificial intelligence, but managed service providers can already take advantage of existing tools
Managed service providers (MSPs) might have been dazzled by the efficiency promises of artificial intelligence (AI), but there are benefits to embracing more automation that can be unlocked now.
Encouraging greater adoption of automation tools is ServiceNow partner Popx, described by Andy Venables, its chief technology officer and cofounder, as “an MSP for MSPs”.
The firm offers ServiceNow as a managed service to those that are unable to provide those services under their own steam.
Venables said AI dominated conversations, but that there was plenty that could be done with existing automation tools.
“The tech industry is always going to be captivated by new, impressive technologies, particularly where you have a technology that seems like magic to most people,” he said.
“The ability to speak into a box and a box to speak back, as if it was a friendly teacher, it’s amazing,” said Venables. “But I do think, for me, I always like to bring it back to the use case. When a customer says to me, ‘we want more automation’, I do have a bit of a wry smile.
“What we like to do is really take that customer on a journey and get under the skin of where specific automations will bring specific value to their business. When you go through that exercise, very quickly, the first word you drop is ‘automation’, and you start talking about specifically what they’re looking to achieve.”
Expertise required
He pitches ServiceNow as an automation platform with ticketing that could provide operational efficiencies, but said it did require expertise, and that was often a problem for some of the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) MSPs.
“We designed our model from scratch being fully aware of these problems, we’ve designed a different model that addresses these problems structurally,” he said. “It’s a completely different delivery model that gives you that ready-made-up evidence, gives you that ready main team of experts, and, crucially, the price is astronomical.
“For most MSPs, they see the value of a managed service,” said Venables. “They they run and sell managed services themselves so they understand the value of working with a partner who can do that for them.”
He said there were also benefits to automation with M&A activity, which is a regular occurrence in the MSP world.
“That means [MSPs] are going out and buying other small, typically smaller, MSPs, and trying to derive a greater asset value of the sum of the parts by merging the two together and gaining efficiencies,” said Venables.
“You might want to combine the ticketing systems, you might want to combine the portals from your acquisitions and the finance systems. We’re a really big part of that, and we can really help drive that operational efficiency.
“For the MSPs that are on an acquisition trail, and we have a few that are quite heavily involved in that, we can turn the operational part of integration from a stress to a real positive,” he said.
