At NinjaOne, growth seems to be going full steam ahead for now. The company is valued at $1.98bn (about €1.85bn) after a recent investment round. In the IT world, it is attracting attention with a platform for managing and supporting endpoints and users. In conversation with General Manager EMEA Andre Schindler, we learn more about NinjaOne’s approach.
Schindler clarifies that NinjaOne originates from the RMM world but has expanded its activities significantly. This also explains the company’s evolution. Initially, it was founded as NinjaRMM to demonstrate the role it can play in automating IT management for Managed Service Providers (MSPs). It is still the core platform, but simply too much has been added to continue under the same name. Hence, the new name. The company now describes itself as an endpoint management vendor that addresses IT management challenges.
Broad platform
NinjaOne’s founder, Sal Sferlazza, has remained with the company all these years. He fulfils the CEO role and is also involved in the development of the product daily. Schindler, overseeing Sales and Operations in the EMEA region, makes it clear to us that Sferlazza’s philosophy has led to its evolution into a comprehensive endpoint management platform. The development of the platform considers which features users request, as well as the problems they encounter. Based on this, NinjaOne releases new releases, and the platform has become so much more. The image below clarifies what the platform can do and support today.
As you can see, many activities today focus on taking care of a company’s security. In this, Patch Management has become a highly sought-after product, states Schindler. It allows IT departments to automate patching tasks. NinjaOne’s software identifies and evaluates patches and then deploys them to internet-connected corporate devices. Windows, Mac and Linux are supported, so the most commonly used workstations, laptops and servers can be neatly provisioned with the latest patches.
On the other hand, backups have become a key business for NinjaOne. When an MSP has set up the backups for the businesses they’re serving, the critical business data is protected with the last line of defence. This way, the data is recoverable if a business becomes a victim of a ransomware attack. This backup solution is built with MSPs in mind, meaning backups are customizable to the data protection needs of a customer. Controls are in place for what is backed up, how many revisions are saved and how long data is stored. The management occurs in one place.
This pure security business exists alongside integrations with security products from major market players. For example, many NinjaOne customers use the platform in combination with products from SentinelOne, CrowdStrike and Bitdefender. Such parties can provide additional endpoint capabilities in EDR and MDR. The best NinjaOne can do, Schindler argues, is to link the products and pass on security information. A security expert is offered the necessary data in the right environment.
MSPs at heart
As NinjaOne originates from the RMM world, it initially completely adapted its market approach to that. As a result, it has a very extensive partner network of MSPs supporting SMEs with IT management. Yet, the MSP market is increasingly changing. SMEs are still the main target group for most MSPs, but there is an increasing focus on larger companies. Schindler sees this happening through MSPs specialising in niches. For example, NinjaOne has partners that focus on airports and hospitals, which are by no means environments with few endpoints. Outsourcing to an MSP can be interesting because the organisation is already short of IT professionals.
On the other hand, Schindler thinks it is important for NinjaOne to support any environment, regardless of the company’s size. Suppose a company starts with 50 endpoints on NinjaOne and grows quickly within a short time. For this company, growing to thousands of endpoints quickly is desirable. “The platform is scalable because of its SaaS architecture,” says Schindler. “It is an innovation platform, we have core structures and you can do a lot of things out-of-the-box.”
Schindler can also support this claim with major international brands that are NinjaOne customers, such as Nvidia, Nissan, and Staples.
NinjaOne in Europe
With this approach, NinjaOne has operated in the European market for six years. In 2018, the European headquarters opened in Berlin, and Schindler founded this EMEA office. Since then, it has added people with a local presence in several countries. For example, localising sales and marketing campaigns is often done from Berlin. There are then employees at this European headquarters who cover multiple regions, possibly supplemented by several employees working locally in a country. For those local employees, a local office does not necessarily have to be present, it depends on the potential of a country and a customer’s wishes. Schindler says that the Netherlands is an ideal country par excellence for NinjaOne. In the Netherlands, compared to other countries, many people speak English. It makes support from Berlin a lot easier.
This is reflected in the MSP strategy towards the European market. Many conversations take place over the phone and Zoom calls. It is then a lot about the needs of the MSPs and end users. Do they have any challenges with the current product? Are they running into certain issues when implementing with a new customer? NinjaOne invests a lot in its support department to ensure that such questions are followed up. Efforts are made to always have an employee who speaks the language of an MSP or end customer.
Acknowledgement
Schindler also cites a recent customer satisfaction survey when discussing support. After all, that’s where NinjaOne constantly puts focus. The endpoint management vendor constantly wants to serve the customer in the best possible way. Schindler wants to talk mainly about NinjaOne’s strength and not so much about competitors, but he does note that some players in the market are hefty when technical defects occur over time. Instead, NinjaOne aims to resolve such problems quickly through its support department.
The customer satisfaction survey cited by Schindler comes from market researcher G2. In it, it is positioned on the far right in the areas of Endoint Management, Patch Management, and RMM. That is the most favorable position a technology company can achieve in this survey. In fact, in the RMM category, NinjaOne has led this ranking for five years in a row.
Maintaining and deconstructing position
NinjaOne is pleased with that appreciation and, therefore, intends to do everything possible to keep customers happy in the coming years. Besides introducing features requested by the community and providing quick support, this must be done with the right employees. Schindler says that this is strictly selected during job interviews. Does an applicant fit the NinjaOne team? The five core values at the heart of this are curiosity, integrity, modesty, friendliness and builders. By builders, NinjaOne means a hands-on mentality for building technology and communities and making careers.
At the same time, Schindler sees attracting new staff as one of NinjaOne’s biggest challenges. With that comes peak and trough times throughout the year. This can, for instance, complicate the pace of localisation towards a region. Because that involves a lot of language issues, it can be difficult to scale up that localisation. In this respect, the company’s ambition is sometimes greater than the possibilities at the time.
When asked about the future, Schindler envisions a NinjaOne that continues and optimises its current approach. The centralised approach from the European headquarters and R&D in home country America will have to drive further growth in the coming time. We’re curious to see how it works out and what’s next for NinjaOne.