Kaseya Identifies Top MSP Priorities

Kaseya Identifies Top MSP Priorities

Kaseya, a Miami-based provider of IT management and security software, has released its 2023 MSP Benchmark Report demonstrating that automation, cybersecurity, and integration are at the top of the list when it comes to managed service provider priorities.

About 90% of respondents specified automation as a crucial technology for their business because it improves efficiency, allows them to take on more clients and generates more revenue by automating common processes like endpoint management, monitoring, patching, ticket resolution and even cybersecurity. More than half of the executive (64%) and technician (54%) respondents picked automation, including auto-remediation of tickets, as their top RMM feature.

In year-over-year comparison, there is a 15% jump in respondents who chose cybersecurity as the top IT challenge their clients expect to face this year. About 65% of respondents said most, or all, of their clients have asked for cybersecurity advice.

The top five services that respondents intend to offer in 2023 fall under the cybersecurity umbrella, covering identity and access management, security awareness training and Dark Web monitoring. With cybercrime exploding, the percentage of respondents who back up their customers’ SaaS applications, such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or Salesforce, increased to 83% from 78% in 2022. About one-third, 32% of the respondents, evaluate their threat landscape monthly and 35% evaluate quarterly, while only 11% do so annually, and a mere 1% never do so. Technician respondents said that enhanced security services recorded the most growth in the last 12 months; executives reported it as second place. (For executives, subscription-based managed services took the top spot, with business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) service featured among the top four service categories.)

Meanwhile, 90% of respondents agree that integration between core applications is critical to their business. Lack of integration between solutions continues to hinder daily operations and productivity. In the survey, 39% of respondents reported that the biggest obstacle to business growth is the inability of technicians to maximize software usage. About 63% of executives surveyed said that integration enabled them to take on more clients and expand their business, with 54% saying fewer technicians were needed to manage the workload. Almost half, 49% of the executives, also said integration helped them cut costs.

The primary challenges anticipated by MSPs include customer acquisition as the MSP space intensifies, and dealing with advanced and sophisticated security threats. Supply chain issues are leveling off – the percentage of respondents who said supply chain impact is significant dropped from 35% to 28% in 2023.

Kaseya’s 2023 MSP Benchmark Report is based on a survey of more than 1,000 managed services providers (MSPs) from the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the APAC region. Of the respondents, executives comprised 37% of the pool while technicians made up the remaining 63%.

Channel Impact^®
The report drives home the importance of automation and integration while cybersecurity continues to be a pressing issue.