Kaseya exec says 'extremely thin' cloud services margins are shrinking further
Kaseya's chief product officer, Mike Puglia, on the challenges when reselling cloud services
Describe your company in five words or fewer.
IT systems and security management
Tell us about how your channel program works.
Kaseya partners embed our products into the services they deliver and are able to set their price points for the managed services delivered using Kaseya products. Kaseya uses a 'Times 20' methodology, where the MSP prices its services to customers to garner up to a 20X return on investment for the cost of the Kaseya software used to deliver its services.
Kaseya Accelerate is our community and channel programme. It consists of online and in-person training, live events, such as road shows and annual user conferences, Kaseya University to enable additional education and certification and sponsored participation in MSP peer groups.
What do you think is the most challenging trend in the channel today?
The consumerisation of IT has dramatically changed the way organisations consume technology, and the channel must evolve to serve this significant market shift. As applications and infrastructure have moved to the cloud - in many cases directly purchased by line of business management - traditional fulfillment, delivery and implementation processes are disappearing.
However, the skills and knowledge needed to utilise technology solutions that create business value have increased. This creates a larger opportunity for the channel to provide high-value, high-margin solutions built around their unique expertise in the use and adoption of new technology regardless of how they are purchased or implemented (cloud versus on-prem).
If you had to give your channel partners one piece of advice, what would it be?
Build deep expertise around business and IT applications. Even infrastructure in the public cloud is now an application, so you can develop offerings in this emerging space. Since margins on reselling cloud services are extremely thin (and shrinking), successful channel providers will serve their business customers by providing unique skills in these technologies, which are not easily replicable.
What are the three most important things partners need from vendors to be successful?
1. Go-to-market strategy - As an industry we spend so much time on technology, speeds and feeds. The vendor that can truly enable a partner to go to market with a complete package of how to sell, market, staff, train, prospect, price and deliver a solution will make the partner successful.
2. True relationships - If a partner is just another number to the vendor, they quickly diverge. Partners need vendors who are willing to invest, not just in the technology, but in a business relationship with dedicated partner resources. They must have regular, personalised reviews (beyond sales numbers) so the partner and vendor have a clear (and regularly updated) plan for the future of the relationship.
3. Channel readiness - Partners need a vendor offering that is truly ready for the channel. This means offering not just a product/service that is sold direct and dumped into the channel, but having the entire process across prospecting, opportunity, sale, fulfillment and ongoing support built around the channel.
What is your favorite conference location?
Las Vegas. That city is designed to support conferences.
Which IT trends do you expect to see dying out over the next 18 months to two years?
On-premises technology. Physical offices with employees will always remain, but look how those offices have changed from a technology perspective in just the past few years. The office is comprised of an end user computing device and a pipe to the internet. Email, collaboration tools, CRM, ERP, directories, storage, voice, HR - all these systems, previously installed at every customer site, now live in the cloud and are typically sold as a subscription that can be purchased outside of IT. This radically changes the way organisations adopt technology.