Datto reveals top business challenges for managed service providers

“We work with our MSP partners every day to help them achieve their business goals,” stated Rob Rae, vice president, business development, Datto. “With this survey, we have a better understanding of their evolving challenges, preferences and quirks to better support them in the future. We think it’s important to share these results so the entire ecosystem can benefit from understanding the needs of this growing IT industry sector. Plus, like many of our MSP partners, we are also partial to Star Wars over Star Trek.”

The survey covered a range of topics, including business and lifestyle questions, to better understand what interests or motivates an MSP executive while managing their business every day. Key findings from the survey included:

• 60 percent of MSPs serve fewer than 100 clients, followed by 20 percent that serve 101-200 clients
• Marketing and sales tops the list of MSP challenges (53 percent) for 2018, followed by staffing and training (41 percent), growing pains (28 percent), and ransomware and cybersecurity (26 percent)
• 75 percent of MSPs stated they still offer break-fix services
• MSPs focus on servicing customers in a specific vertical market, including healthcare (53 percent), finance (49 percent) and manufacturing (48 percent)
• 92 percent of MSPs are active on social media, led by Facebook and LinkedIn; Reddit is the preferred forum for connecting with industry peers to discuss issues and solutions.

Marketing and sales is the biggest challenge faced by MSPs, which includes lead generation, hiring sales talent, cold calling and market differentiation. Staffing and training follows, with MSPs challenged by recruiting quality technology, sales and marketing talent, training and retention. Datto offers several tools to help MSPs with these challenges throughout the report.