Now in its fourth year, MSP Day is an annual movement created by Barracuda to highlight, challenge, and celebrate the managed services industry.
In conjunction with MSP Day, Barracuda has released “The Evolving Landscape of the MSP Business”report, which points to numerous opportunities ahead for MSPs in the coming year.
The 2021 report demonstrates the appetite for managed services is stronger than ever, with many survey respondents identifying managed services as the biggest sales opportunity in the coming year. To seize this opportunity, MSPs can identify areas in which to focus their growth and expand their offerings. This is particularly key for those that are in the early stages of their journey or those that were forced down a specific route due to the demands of the pandemic.
As part of this annual survey, Barracuda spoke to more than 400 partners from across the globe, with the combined answers indicating similar challenges for MSPs worldwide when it comes to service provisioning and meeting the complex needs of their customers. Data from the study also indicates that security remains the number one concern for customers and the leading driver for seeking out managed services.
Key findings include:
- Increasing security concerns and a growing remote workforce are driving the need for third-party service providers. 80 percent of respondents felt overall security was a significant business opportunity, but leading the field was remote work, which 90 percent saw as a lucrative opportunity.
- Many MSPs are growing their services portfolios. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they had expanded their services portfolio in the past 12 months.
- Security is the top driver to services. This year security concerns were listed as the main driver behind SMBs adopting managed services, followed by the increasing complexity of IT. In 2020, it was the opposite.
- Security services are becoming increasingly important for MSPs. Five security-based services — endpoint security, email security, network security, server security, and endpoint monitoring — all made the top five services in 2021. This is one more than in 2020, and four more than in 2019.
- The hybrid approach is still popular, but services are accounting for more business growth. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they expect services to account for 50 percent or more of their revenues this year, with 39 percent saying they expect to generate up to 50 percent of their overall business through services.
Thanks to a rapid rise in digital transformation, remote work adoption, and ransomware attacks — all driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and economic disruptions over the past year — the report points to security as the safest bet there is for business growth.
Couple this with a lack of skills and resources among end-user customers and the increasing likelihood the workforce will never return to the ‘old normal,’ and it’s clear that MSPs will have a lot of opportunity in 2021 and beyond.
“Since founding the annual MSP Day and Evolving MSP Landscape report, we’ve seen the MSP market adapt and boast more opportunities than ever, and this year is no different,” says Brian Babineau, SVP & General Manager, Barracuda MSP. “The appetite is there, certainly among those that have fallen victim to cybercrime as they’ve adjusted to remote working, and it’s now up to MSPs to engage with these customers, offer the skills and knowledge they’re lacking, and become a trusted service provider.”
Join Barracuda for MSP Day 2021: https://barracuda-msp-event.com/register/
