MSPs: The Fastest-Growing Products And Services In 2021
CRN asked 10 solution providers and MSPs at XChange+ 2021 this week the question: “What service or product will be your fastest-growing through the end of the year and why? And just how much growth are you expecting?”
10 Red Hot Products And Services MSPs Are Selling Today
Managed service providers are growing sales faster than ever before as the COVID-19 pandemic saw companies of all sizes to turn to channel partners for solutions to help keep business afloat.
“We actually saw a tremendous amount of growth in terms of channel sales all across the country,” said Jade Surrette, chief marketing officer for CRN parent The Channel Company, in front of hundreds of solution providers at XChange+ 2021 this week in San Antonio. “It was really great to see that in a very challenging time, solution providers thrive.”
With many of the biggest sales and technology trends in the channel all pointing towards rapid growth for the rest of 2021 and into 2022, CRN asked 10 solution providers and MSPs at XChange+ 2021 this week the question, “What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year and why? And just how much growth are you expecting?”
Here is what MSPs and solution providers are saying is their fastest-growing product or service in 2021.
Brian Miller
CEO of FusionTek
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
Security services. I hate to be another person jumping on the bandwagon but it’s just a fact of life.
Really the biggest thing we’re seeing is because of all the ransomware attacks, insurance companies are requiring their insured – i.e. our client – to make sure that they adhere to a certain level of standards, from how the equipment is set-up or if its multi-factor identification or for backups, etc. So while we’ve had that discussion with our clients for years, a lot of times they’ve said, ‘Hey, it’s an inconvenience right now,’ or ‘Hey, there’s a challenge.’ Now the insurance companies are saying, ‘We’re going to drop you unless you go do this.’
So there’s a requirement to now come to the table. So it’s zero-trust items such as ThreatLocker – that’s a prime example of this sort of thing. There’s other security like multi-factor, things of that nature is really where growth is at. It’s being driven from not really regulatory as much as a compliance directive to keep your insurance or to be able to connect your normal business operations.
How much growth are you expecting?
It’s easily 50 percent growth. It’s both net new folks who were acquiring clients or maybe their previous vendor didn’t understand the needs of what was going on there. As well as our existing clients are saying the security tools stack which we had for them last year, protected them against last year’s threats. They don’t protect them against this year’s threats. So we got to provide them a different toolset, usually a more costly toolset, to deliver and protect them against today’s security threats.
Nathan Stallings
President of Matrix Integration
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
We’re expecting the largest growth with our flagship managed service offering we call MiAssurance. In our market, which is Indiana and Kentucky, companies are adopting fully managed IT services rapidly because, believe it or not, there are still a lot of small and medium businesses who are or were recently still trying to run their own IT. Many are now looking to get out of the business of keeping the IT lights on and instead shifting their focus to driving more value for their customers.
We’re expecting a 20 percent to 30 percent increase in MiAssurance sales.
What solution within MiAssurance do you expect to grow the fastest?
Within our MiAssurance offering we’re seeing a few different shifts. Organizations are interested in migrating away from on-premise servers and going to a server-less infrastructure.
How much growth are you expecting?
So we are expecting a 20 percent to 30 percent rise in Microsoft Azure sales. Our clients continue to adopt a more expanded and integrated virtual meeting platform than Zoom. Zoom was great in a pinch for virtual meetings, but Microsoft Teams is quickly outpacing the value of Zoom for small businesses because it provides a more comprehensive list of features like file sharing, forms, etc.
John Burk
Account Executive at Computex Technology Solutions
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
We’re seeing a lot more threats in the landscape. We have partners come into us bringing this to our attention, and there is so much about it in the news. The media is reporting ransomware attacks and hacks. Multiple industries have been affected. And so that’s where we need to put our focus on....Obviously, (our clients are) waking up and hearing the same things on the news that we’re hearing. But we’re also encouraging them to look at security. We need to be proactive. We need to be in front of it.
How much growth are you expecting?
It’s hard to say exactly how much growth in cybersecurity Computex will see. My ultimate goal is to make sure that each customer I represent is protected, whether it’s security operations or having a good backup system in place or both,” he said.
Carlos Diaz
CEO and Managing Partner of Vulcan Business Solutions
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
The conversation starts with security, it’s a very lengthy one because security encompasses so many different aspects. What we’re going to try to do for the rest of this year is add to our stack of products. It’s the antivirus, it’s the email security, but then you also have two-factor authentication. You have to look at security-awareness training, all the elements of educating the end user and all the tools that are out there to mitigate problems. If you don’t know the tech there’s DNS filtering. There’s a lot of technologies that are used when you talk about security.
What I see in our business is expanding upon those services that we’re delivering for the client by adding the additional tools. Yeah you have antivirus ,but that’s not everything. You have complex passwords, but that’s not everything. For us, much as like anyone else, you want to double your book or business and we want to be able to maximize the revenue from each of our clients by putting in additional tools that are going to help mitigate the problems down the road.
How much growth are you expecting?
I’m going to be very conservative. We’re a small company, we’ve been having progressive 5 percent growth and I’m going to guesstimate between five and seven percent. Most of us can’t double our client base in one month, we’d go out of business. We don’t have the human capital that could absorb that much business. If I net one new client a month, I’m happy.
Ryan Coyne
VP of Overview Technology Solutions
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
Azure virtual desktop. In New York, along with Seattle, we were the cradle of the pandemic’s origin as far as how it started to impact the economy locally. New York was a big economic downturn, followed by the period of uncertainty, followed by economic regrowth. A lot of people are choosing not to return back to the offices that they abandoned, or closed or the flexibility that being in a physical location didn’t really afford them from an agility standpoint. We’re finding that virtual office powered by Azure virtual desktop … we’re partnered with Pax8 for that, we do all of our Microsoft subscriptions and our support through them, combined with different tools like threat locker and different kinds of new ransomware combat. Those are the two bells of the ball that are really helping us grow and offering our clients the solutions they want. To be able to offer the kinds of things that we’re talking about as far as Golden handcuff client employee retention strategies, Azure virtual desktop facilitates all that for us. We’re already seeing massive growth in that segment.
How much growth are you expecting to see?
In the remainder of 2021, I would say at least another 40 percent to 50 percent growth. A lot of people are looking to finally spend, confidently, money they were keeping in the war chest ready for if needed it to survive another big downturn, and that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Derek Nwamadi
CEO of Quantum Symphony
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
So customers have bought a lot of widgets. Most of them are just sitting on the shelf. We’ve been attacked, and have been for years. So the question becomes, how have the legacy solutions we’ve bought helped us either really understand where we are or, better yet, what level of proficiency around security do we actually have.
Like I tell everybody, whenever you migrate to the cloud, you exponentially create exposure to your faults. And by identifying what those faults are, fixing those gaps before you make the massive investment in migration, you really should know where you are before you start.”
What we do is, we say, ‘Oh, this tool will fit this solution’ without understanding the domino effects or the global impact of that widget to the rest of the organization because we’re so widget-driven instead of holistically-driven. It’s easier to close the deal and stay in business when selling a widget. But you absolutely have to stop and take a step back and understand what you are trying to achieve and where the true gaps are.
Randy Jorgensen
Managing Member of RJ Networks
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
Right now it’s probably Microsoft 365. Just as I’m finally able to convince customers to move off those legacy Exchange servers.
What’s finally getting them to make the move?
The security threat. We will go to them and say, “Really, we’ve got to do something.” That’s hands down on the fact that the servers that they’re on are nine or 10 years old. It’s like, “Hey, how long is this going to keep going? We’ve got to do something.”
Do they need a lot of persuading or are the headlines enough?
It vacillates. For some, it’s pretty easy. For a couple, it’s a little bit harder to sell. But for the most part, it’s, “You know what, it’s time. We can’t drag this out any longer.”
The bottom line is, “Wait, I have to keep paying every month for this service?” Well, yeah, or you pay this month and we do a whole new server. The bottom line is the dollar. Most of my clients, once I really say, “OK, it’s time,” they say, “OK, we’ll jump.”
What within Microsoft 365 do you like?
I couldn’t get people interested in Teams until COVID-19 hit. I’d say, “This comes with the license.” For most people, it’s still all about email. And then, “By the way, did you know this comes with Teams?” And they say, “Oh, we can do that.”
Tanaz Choudhury
President of TanChes Global Management
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
Security is going to be the fastest0-growing service for obvious reasons. Up until last year, I had two services attached to our three-year growth plan, and that was storage and security. Not that I’m going to throw storage away. Storage is still very much in line because the amount of security you put in is going to require that amount of storage to go with it if you’re going to have redundancies. It is two sides of the same coin. As long as the coin is good, you’re still going to want both of these. So I still see that as fast growing services for the next 12 to 24 months across the board. This is size agnostic because even if you’re small, you’re still going to need security and storage if your large, you’re still going to need it, just more of it.
How much growth are you expecting to see?
I’d like to see at least growth of between 15 percent and 20 percent from last year to this year.
Daniel Ihonvbere
CEO of Tech Prognosis
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
Tools that facilitate productive and secure working from home such as VPN, endpoint protection, and web protection and filtering have been the fastest growing for Round Rock, Texas-based Tech Prognosis, with an annual growth rate of roughly 35 percent, Ihonvbere said. The web protection capabilities minimize the impact of phishing attempts by blocking known malicious links, according to Ihonvbere.
Businesses were historically reluctant to invest in tools that safeguard remote work, but the onset of COVID-19 forced companies that had been sitting on the sidelines to finally invest in upgrading their defenses, Ihonvbere said. Organizations also pushed their web protection and filtering assets down onto the endpoint during the pandemic, according to Ihonvbere.
Terry Speigner
President and CEO of NGEN
What service or product will be your fastest growing through the end of the year?
Businesses have invested heavily in cybersecurity offerings such as multi-factor authentication, password management and advanced threat protection (ATP) for email, with sales for Lanham, Md.-based NGEN increasing by 30 percent to 40 percent over the past year, Speigner said.
Customers have been trying to limit their liability and risk in the wake of COVID-19 as well as recent high-profile ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline, JBS Foods and Kaseya, according to Speigner. Many of these investments were long overdue, with the pandemic pushing organizations to spend money to improve their security posture, Speigner said.