Technology Reseller - v31

technologyreseller.co.uk 07 MSP INSIGHT this trend varies by company size. While 44% of employees of large organisations have ceased printing entirely, this figure falls to 18% of SMEs and 10% of mid- sized organisations. Quocirca Director Louella Fernandes said: “There is a concentration of printing among employees in mid-sized organisations. This may be because security policies at larger organisations prevent documents being printed at home.” www.quocirca.com Fewer meetings drive productivity gains Nearly two-thirds (64%) of professionals surveyed by Korn Ferry, the organisational consulting firm, say they are more MSP Insight New reports from Datto and IT Glue highlight the impact of Covid-19 on MSPs Changing priorities Datto’s fourth annual Global State of the MSP Report based on a survey of more than 1,800 MSPs highlights how priorities have shifted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its findings include: n More than four out of five MSPs (84%) believe now is a good time to be an MSP. Over the past three years, 22% of MSPs have seen their annual revenue rise by up to 5%; 24% have seen it grow by up to 10%; 19% have increased annual revenue by up to 20%; and 12% have seen no change. n More than half of MSPs get more than 50% of their revenue from recurring services. n The two most consistent drivers of MSP growth are to generate a higher proportion of total revenue from managed services and to set specific revenue and growth goals. If combined, these two activities enable MSPs to double their rate of growth. For every 10% of total revenue derived from managed services, MSPs grow their businesses by between 0.25% and 0.75% on an annual basis. n The pandemic is accelerating cloud migration and security projects and increasing managed services opportunities to the extent that 11% of MSPs have revised revenue growth projections upwards. VoIP, business continuity, Azure migrations, hardware sales and business resilience solutions are also expected to drive revenue. n MSPs will not be immune to the economic impact of the pandemic. Nearly 40% expect to reduce their growth projections by between 10% and 20%. n Clients’ cybersecurity is a top pain point for 34% of MSPs, up from 30% in 2019, and ahead of work/life balance (27%), hiring staff (25%) and sales & marketing (23%). Almost two thirds (61%) consider anti-virus the most critical security solution for SMEs, followed by advanced firewall and RMM. n The emerging technology MSPs are most excited about is 5G, ranked above AI, IoT and ML in terms of its potential value to MSPs’ business. The one they have least expectations for is self-healing IT. The concept is appealing, says Datto, but MSPs’ experience leads them to believe that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The full report can be downloaded from datto.com . The risk and rewards of specialisation IT Glue, a Kaseya company and industry standard for IT documentation, has just published its third annual Global MSP Benchmark Report , based on surveys in February and May i.e. pre- and post-Covid. The latter shows that 51% of MSPs saw monthly revenue decreases as a result of the coronavirus shutdown and 29% saw their accounts receivable increase, indicating that clients could not meet contractual deadlines to pay for services. The two surveys highlight a big shift in MSPs’ priorities in the first two months of shutdown. In February, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the top concerns of MSPs were a lack of adequate time to complete work (54%); an inability to find good technical employees (53%); changing technologies (32%); a lack of information sharing (27%); and cybersecurity threats (27%). In May, their main concerns were the risk of a second lockdown (74%); cybersecurity, which leapt up from 27% in February to 50% in May; and customer churn (36%). Coronavirus has also had a big impact on MSPs’ interest in mergers and acquisitions. In IT Glue’s pre-pandemic survey in February, 52% of MSPs indicated they were at least somewhat interested in acquiring or merging with another MSP (down from 62% in 2018 ). In its follow-up survey in May, only 37% of MSPs said they were considering M&A activity. One interesting finding highlighted by IT Glue concerns the merits of diversification versus specialisation. MSPs that focused on a specific industry experienced slightly higher revenue this year than more general MSPs (79% vs. 75%). However, MSPs that targeted the following four industries were more likely to report profits of 20% or more: legal (43%), government (40%), finance (39%) and professional services (38%). IT Glue warns that while specialisation can be a boon for MSPs, placing all your eggs in one basket can also be risky; MSPs that specialised in retail and hospitality were especially hard hit during the pandemic. https://itglue.com/resource/ global-benchmark-2020/ productive when they work from home than they are in the office, even with distractions such as children or a spouse. The vast majority (92%) believe there will be fewer in-person meetings post Covid-19; 87% believe they will be more productive as a result of spending less time in meetings. Women more positive about homeworking More than half (59%) of people currently working at home say doing so has changed their lives for the better, with less than a quarter (23%) saying it has had no impact on the quality of their worklife and 18% saying it has made it worse. The research by business telecommunications provider 4Com shows that women are more positive about home working than men: 65% of women agreed that working from home had changed their lives for the better, compared to 51% of men; and just 16% of women said it had made their lives worse, compared to 21% of men. With 81% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that their company had the capability to support long-term remote working, the top three challenges were seen to be communication with colleagues (24%), social interaction (20%) and work- life balance (16%). https://www.4com.co.uk 2020 GLOBAL MSP BENCHMARK REPORT APre andPostCOVIDAnalysis Visitourblog: www.datto.com/blog Subscribe to ourpodcast: www.datt o.com/podcast Report Followuson: Datto’s Global State of the MSP Report