MSP Barracuda has released a report with the catchy title “The Evolving Landscape of the MSP Business”, which reveals the vast majority of UK SMEs are now subscribing to some form of IT managed services. However, narrow adoption and a lack of trust in third-party data governance means there’s still more work to be done.
This research is a detailed analysis of the appetite and application of managed IT services within UK SMEs. The views of those offering managed services have been compared with the observations of those who are using them to gain a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges likely to affect further growth in this sector.
The report shows widespread adoption with 95 percent of the UK channel offers managed services, and 83 percent of UK SMEs are using them.
IT channel cites managed services as the No.1 revenue opportunity in 2018 and 2019
It predicts that managed service adoption remains narrow. The services most commonly offered by MSPs don’t match the services most commonly purchased by UK SMEs.
Trust is an issue with 83 percent of UK SMEs who won’t touch managed services cite lack of trust to handle their data as the reason. Less than eight percent of UK SMEs either never received a contract from their MSP or admit to having never read the Ts & Cs.
While it could be said that the findings paint a competitive market with a generally positive outlook, clearly there remain many areas for MSPs to work on to improve the experience and commercial benefits for all concerned.
As part of the research, it partnered with independent IT analyst Clive Longbottom, which provides a foreword and independent conclusions from the findings. “On the surface, it’s logical that the desire to reduce capex while increasing efficiency, coupled with the need to overcome a lack of available skills internally to battle mounting security threats, would prompt many to turn to managed services”, he commented.
“Although the research reveals cost reduction as the biggest motive behind opting for managed services, I’ve warned in the report that any relationship with a supplier should not be purely driven by upfront perceived cost savings”, Longbottom said. “Effective cost savings will come through the MSP meeting the business needs against multiple areas, such as high availability and effective information protection. Even so, the market cannot stand still. Moving forward, it will the more integrated, business-focused offerings pulling together more services from around the public cloud while combining the discrete and demonstrable skills of the MSP itself around domain and technical expertise that will raise the bar.”
