Advances in artificial intelligence, cyber threats, IT complexity, expanding regulations and industry consolidation pose threats for all companies, particularly SMBs. Each of them also represents opportunities for MSPs who serve SMBs.
Executives from three 2024 MSP 501 companies discussed these opportunities in a recent Channel Futures webinar, “How MSPs Can Jump at SMBs' Growing Demand for IT Management.” They were Ron Lovern, EVP of Triton Networks (No. 32 on MSP 501), Paul Blough, CEO of Blough Tech (No. 90), and Clay Archer, CEO of DPC Technology (No. 259).
Here are the highlights:
IT Complexity
“There's more at our fingertips today, more information that's available to consumers and small businesses than ever before,” Lovern said. “But at the same time, we're all a little bit more confused than we've ever been before. There's so much information you don't know which direction to go. As an MSP, the big opportunity is to step in and help with that. What do you want to do as you move forward? Everything's at our fingertips, it's just a matter of how we go about implementing it.”
Artificial intelligence (AI)
AI is showing up throughout the IT landscape. As Archer put it: “It’s starting to evolve from the wild, wild west into a real industry now.”
Blough pointed out that development makes it a golden opportunity for MSPs.
“The [AI] adoption rate is getting significant right now,” Blough said. “We're seeing is a lot of pilot projects. I think the opportunity for MSPs in that space is to create projects around -- first of all -- are those businesses ready for AI? Second, do they have the appropriate security in place for AI? We're seeing AI in a lot of business applications, and so it's not going to be just Microsoft Copilot. I think we're going to see a lot of AI adoption within very isolated, siloed business data systems. We do quite a bit with health care, and so we're starting to see that show up in the EHR systems as option.”
Lovern agreed that the AI opportunity for MSPs is expanding to more applications and devices powered by AI. And of course cybersecurity.
“Cybersecurity is always a growing opportunity, especially with AI and the onset of threat actors and everybody else is out there,” Lovern said. “One thing that we're looking more at is those AI-powered solutions. They're becoming more accessible. Going into 2025, everybody talks about all the computer refreshes that are going on, that we're already ordering AI powered laptops and computer devices.”
Regulatory compliance expansion
“I think the place that MSPs can make money the quickest right now is helping small businesses with regulatory compliance in IT security related [compliance] issues,” Blough said. “Our small business clients are facing regulations, and they don't know how what to deal with it. I still find that a lot of MSPs shy away from really tackling some of the specifics, like Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which applies to the banking and financial industry and this past year was extended to a much broader group of organizations.”
Consolidation from M&A
Archer said the opportunities lie in helping customers that grow after M&A, as well as helping others compete if they don’t consolidate.
“It started to start to really come in fast and furious with our client base [in 2024],” he said. “And so it means a couple things to us as MSPs. One is being able to help our clients that aren't interested in going to PE or not doing any consolidation. We help them compete with people that have just more resources behind them. We help them use automation in their technology to compete in a world that is largely consolidating. On the flip side, as an MSP we’re able to work with those new consolidated companies at a higher level. There’s opportunity to go up market with the bigger corporations as they consolidate.”
Peer Groups
The MSP 501 reps also strongly recommended their colleagues join peer groups.
“That's a that's a no brainer, and also probably the biggest single best move I've ever made in my career is to join a peer group,” Archer said.
Blough added: “The single best business decision that I have ever made as an MSP is joining a peer group. If you're not a part of a peer group, you're doing yourself a tremendous disservice. It absolutely transformed our business. We cannot do this without partnership. So whether it's partnering with great vendors or partnering with other people in the industry and a peer group, you need to take advantage of that and transform your business.”
You can watch the webinar here.