Change is hard, but it’s easier than you think, especially when survival depends on it.
We had the opportunity to meet with Fred Voccola, CEO of Kaseya during IT Press Tour #35. Kaseya provides a suite of tools for monitoring, managing, security, cloud, continuity, and compliance for MSPs and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
SMBs without IT departments or personnel use MSPs to recommend, set-up, manage, and support their technology and their employees. Technology investment as a percentage of revenue for SMBs is up 400% since 2000. It’s projected to grow another 18% by 2025.
Since 9/11 we see that downturns in the economy results in eras of technology innovation. Following 9/11 we saw the adoption era where SMBs followed the enterprise PC explosion during the 1990s fully embracing computing for record-keeping, inventory, accounting, and many other key business functions. In 2000, less than 46% of small businesses used computers. By 2007, more than 80% had more than three PCs/servers and needed them to be connected. Malware and data protection grew as 64% of SMB owners said data was critical to their business.
Following the financial crisis of 2008, we saw the acceleration era as computer use continued to grow and bringing new challenges for IT. Over 90% of online content only resides on the dark web. Ransomware emerges as the mainstream form of cyberattack. Cybersecurity spending grows more than 100%. Disaster recovery (DR) goes mainstream and becomes the responsibility of IT as 93% of companies without DR who suffer a major data disaster are out of business within one year.
And in the 60 days since the Covid-19 pandemic, we see the dependence era sparked by economic uncertainty and dramatic lifestyle changes. Businesses have innovated to survive -- telemedicine, fitness videos, restaurants go online with delivery, education becomes virtual and remote, and architecture uses satellites, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR). IT is critical to the survival of businesses today. In less than a quarter, demand for full network and internet management has increased 46%, advanced security is up 49%, business continuity and DR is up 73%, and automated IT documentation is up 36%.
The rate of change is accelerating. Today, technology is required for the survival of a business. This is accelerating SMBs move to digital transformation. In Q4 2019, on 16% of SMBs said they depended on IT, in 2Q 2020, 84% of SMBs say they depend on IT.
Requirements of IT are greater and necessitates a platform that delivers essential IT services, increases the efficiency of technology, and helps control costs. Kaseya’s IT Complete platform helps MSPs and internal IT with:
Endpoint management as the number and diversity of endpoints increases exponentially
Security management
Backup and disaster recovery
SaaS and cloud management
Audits
Compliance
Professional service automation and Service Desk
Automated IT documentation
IT has more to do with fewer people, and a lower budget while working remotely and supporting many others working remotely. Churn is becoming a real issue for MSPs. IT professionals have to wear more hats. And there are cost concerns.
The average technician loses approximately 50% of their day to mundane tasks of password or information lookup, moving between different software tools, and repetitive processes. Automated processes and remediation can reduce the demand for IT professionals and seamlessly get remote workers up and running again to improve productivity and employee satisfaction.
82% of IT professionals resist making changes to their software kit due to familiarity and fear of change. However, 94% of IT professionals are happy with the new solutions after using them for six weeks.
IT people are willing to change, it takes time, it’s less than you think -- only 6 weeks.