New research from Kaseya predicts SMEs’ priorities in 2024. On the IT front, companies will primarily focus on consolidating vendors, expanding service portfolio, embracing cloud migration and addressing security concerns.
In particular, the survey looked at what managed service providers (MSPs), SMBs and MMEs can expect in the next 12 months. “With revenues and competition on the rise, and a focus on the need for a superior customer experience, MSPs have a front row seat to what makes their customers successful,” explains Holly Pateman, Kaseya’s SVP of Product Marketing.
According to the survey results, the MSP industry has experienced significant growth this year despite challenging economic conditions. Nearly two-thirds of European MSPs saw year-over-year revenue growth. Among them, 37 percent even saw revenue growth of more than 10 percent. At the same time, MSPs see competition as their biggest challenge. Currently, 35 percent of MSPs cite it as their biggest challenge, compared with 29 percent last year.
SMBs and midsize businesses
Interestingly, Kaseya’s survey also identified where IT professionals are prioritizing in the coming year. Vendor consolidation scores high in this area. In fact, 84 percent of IT professionals said they would like to use fewer vendors to meet their technology needs. They also had this intention in 2022, when 64 percent preferred consolidation. Kaseya sees in reducing vendors a benefit to streamlined supply chain, improved procurement, delivery, deployment and asset management.
When looking at what services SMBs and MMEs want to add over the next 12 months, collaboration software, BI and analytics software and incident response and forensics scored high.
Kaseya also gathered figures on plans around cloud migration. An estimated half of MSPs see 50 percent or more of their customers moving workloads to the cloud. Companies are mostly choosing to embrace Infrastructure as a Service and migrate databases and email servers to the cloud.
Finally, Kaseya sees notable trends around security among SMBs and midsize businesses. For example, 28 percent of MSPs are concerned about customers’ lack of concern about cyber risks. According to Kaseya, there is a big role here for MSPs to properly educate SMEs and MMEs.
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