Amid $500 million in new funding and a flurry of acquisitions, Kaseya is spending $14 million annually to create workflow integrations between its home-grown and acquired products. Those workflow integrations, in turn, reduce manual labor for MSPs (managed IT services providers) and boost end-customer satisfaction, CEO Fred Voccola told roughly 1,800 Connect IT Global 2019 conference attendees today in Las Vegas.
Those information nuggets were part of a broader vision statement from Voccola. During the keynote, he outlined how small businesses increasingly leverage IT to influence the worldwide economy. And those small businesses, in turn, require MSPs to further automate, scale and protect their companies' assets, Voccola asserts.
Yes, Kaseya will continue to integrate with third-party tools -- especially since 95 percent of the company's MSPs use at least one third-party tool, he noted. But ultimately, Kaseya sees its own workflow integrations -- across VSA, BMS, RapidFire, ID Agent, IT Glue, Unitrends and more -- as a near-term market differentiator. Also, he notes that three quarters of third-party software integrations are abandoned within 3 years because software vendors often don't remain aligned.
Kaseya Workflow Integrations So Far
Rival MSP software providers (namely Barracuda Networks, ConnectWise, Continuum, Datto, and SolarWinds MSP, among others) make similar claims about their platform integration strategies. But Voccola points to roughly 26 Kaseya workflow integrations that are already in place, with roughly six to eight additional integrations arriving per quarter, Voccola vowed.
"We're not perfect. We make a lot of mistakes. But we're strategically aligned to do the right thing. We've made a long-term commitment to make sure these products work together."
MSPs hiring and training the right people, leveraging the right platform, and automating their workflow processes will win the day, he asserted.
Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola - 10 Takeaways
Key takeaways from Voccola's keynote include:
1. Audience: There are 1,800 attendees here, with roughly 700 first-time attendees. It sounds like 75 percent represent MSPs and 25 percent represent internal IT departments, roughly.
2. SMBs vs. Enterprises - Economic Impact: Half of economic activity worldwide now comes from small businesses -- up from less than 42 percent or so in the early 1990s. Two-thirds of net new job creation now happens in small businesses. Customers are less loyal to enterprise companies because those customers can search the Web and social media for product information and buying guidance. In other words, enterprise brand affinity has been disrupted by nimble small businesses that leverage IT for sales, marketing and more.
3. SMB IT Spending: For the first time in history, more than 50% of SMB discretionary spending is on IT. Those SMBs are currently investing in security, disaster recovery and compliance -- the key trends that surfaced a decade or so in the enterprise. Next up, current enterprise trends such as artificial intelligence and machine learning will eventually find their way into the SMB sector, he predicted.
4. What MSPs Really Need: MSPs need to meet all of those SMB customer functional demands with huge efficiency. Hence, Kaseya's integrated workflow push, he asserts.
5. Sales Support: The company has built a team to get on the phone with MSPs and help them close business. It sounds like the ID Agent team is particularly seasoned in this area.
6. PSA (Professional Services Automation) Software: The PSA market is commoditized and traditional IT Service Management (ITSM) software is too complex, he says. But Voccola believes Kaseya's BMS software offers the right balance of PSA and ITSM capabilities without suffering from legacy code base issues that ConnectWise faces, he asserts.
7. Supporting Any Endpoint: One-third of the endpoints that Kaseya MSPs now manage are in the cloud. That's why Kaseya Traverse is now built into the company's flagship RMM (remote monitoring and management) platform, called VSA, Voccola says. He asserts the VSA-Traverse combination eliminates the need for rival network monitoring products like Auvik Networks.
8. Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR): "We cost 25 percent less" he asserted, without mentioning potential BDR (Backup and disaster recovery) solutions by name.
9. Security: Kaseya now generates abut $75 million in revenue from security, he said. I don't know if the that figure includes the recent ID Agent acquisition.
10. MSP Partner Base: The ecosystem now includes roughly 20,000 MSPs, he indicated.
What's Real, What's Spin?
Read between the lines, and Kaseya truly is focusing on workflow integration while also introducing aggressive pricing and packaging to boost some of products and code (namely PSA, BDR and Traverse) against entrenched rivals and potential emerging threats.
Overall, Kaseya has consistently gained momentum under Voccola's leadership these past four years. We'll be watching to see if those workflow integrations truly are market differentiators for the company -- and its MSPs.
Check ChannelE2E for ongoing updates for Kaseya Connect IT 2019.
