96
MSP Market Direction with Micheal George
View this email in your browser
The weekly newsletter of the Business of Tech, giving you new insights into the world of IT service delivery.
Looking for stories from the podcast stories? Check out the pod itself on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or daily in your inbox. Stories are available to everyone for five days,and Patreon supporters forever.
Was this forwarded to you? Join the list!
Where is the MSP Market going?
If you’ve been working in managed services for a while, this introduction is easy. I recently caught up with Michael George, the CEO of Continuum when it was acquired by ConnectWise, and, perhaps even more notably, the new CEO of Synchro.
Why would someone with such a successful exit from managed services (and plenty of other impressive titles since then) return to the space? I wanted to know more about the timing and inspiration behind this move, so I welcomed him onto a recent bonus episode of the Business of Tech.
Here’s George’s take on the state of MSPs and what to focus on at this pivotal moment.
What brought George back?
I’m not the only one surprised about George’s choice to join Synchro – he was surprised, too, saying he’s never done the same thing twice.
That approach to work is actually why he’s back; in his view, so much has changed in the MSP sector that it’s not even in the same category anymore. However, two things have stayed the same: MSPs are still struggling to solve the challenge of digital transformation and the skills gap issue.
You might remember that during his tenure at Continuum from 2011-2019, he worked to solve the latter using an offshore model.
Now that he’s back, he’s inspired by two main changes he can sink his teeth into.
First, the role of private equity. PE has two different cycles – value creation and value extraction. ConnectWise is now on the extraction side of things, and in his words, “nobody’s investing in innovation, and they’re on the wrong side of that equation.” So, he’s determined to join the other side and find new ways to add value to the MSP market. In other words, the conditions are right for innovation.
Second, as you might have predicted, is AI. He describes it as a “tectonic shift” for managed services, and Synchro was ready to make the most of the opportunity:
“I was very deliberate about choosing Synchro as the technology platform. It’s cloud-native, it’s the next generation of technology, and it’s with a financial partner that wants to invest and innovate and completely disrupt this industry.”
With these pieces in place, he’s also ready to take on non-automation-focused competition that’s stuck using 30-year-old technology.
And, for the record, George prefers using the term automation over AI:
“Nobody really cares about what the underlying technology is, and they shouldn’t. What they should care about is what’s the impact on MSPs that makes it beneficial,” he said.
What’s Synchro up to?
Back in the day, George purchased the assets of Zenith Infotech – a clever move that enabled him to leverage the tech in new space. So, considering he just joined a new company, and didn’t do so on a whim, I wanted to know what his plan is for Synchro’s asset creation and competitive differentiation.
As you might expect, the answer is a lot. So much so that a relaunch for the entire company is slated for later this year. He can’t share the details yet, but the logline is promising:
“People are taking their existing processes and adding ChatGPT to that existing process. What we’ve done is broken down and leveraged AI at a traditional AI level. We’re using it in the traditional native state, incorporating it into literally every aspect of our product. We’re using large language models and building AI natively into our products. That’s very different than plugging ChatGPT into an existing process.”
Synchro has a cloud-native architecture already, giving him the opportunity to move quickly.
The goal? Maximize computing to preventatively remediate problems before they emerge and manifest as system slow-downs.
The vision? In his own words:
“Think about autonomic computing. Work your way backward, and now think of us as the company that’s going to bring that level of automation into the biggest challenges for MSPs today. So that all that work and everything else is now out of the system, and it elevates our technicians to do higher value work.”
By freeing up technicians’ time, he aims to make digital transformation a feasible goal for the end customer.
A look at pricing trends
Before George took over as CEO, Synchro was a leader in pricing changes, moving to the per-user pricing model early on. Now that he’s at the wheel during a relaunch, I wanted to know if and how George thinks of pricing as a differentiator moving forward.
While most MSPs charge on a per-employee basis (or occasionally a per-device basis), he predicts that the next generation of pricing from vendors will be on a user basis like Synchro.
His goal for Synchro is to achieve the highest amount of automation to enable the technicians in our MSP partner environment to have the best ratio of technician to employee.
So, his main advice here is to continue tracking AI development to ensure your ratio is also as low as possible.
The biggest challenges of 2024 and beyond
What does George think will be the most significant headwind and challenge in 2024 for the managed services space? If there’s anyone worth listening to for this one, it’s George.
His answer blends three issues: the skills gap, an increasingly complex digital environment, and, of course, security.
“The digital transformation of these first-world economies is not over. And in fact, it’s gotten even more complex. We have a more complex digital environment that managed service providers are working in today than they ever have before,” he said.
He cited the pandemic as one cause; it pushed everyone onto the Internet, which became the new network. As for security, he describes it as “one of the most unsolvable problems.” The cherry on top? We haven’t had time to close the skills gap in the face of such rapid change.
Now that you know what’s on the mind of one of managed services’ most well-known CEOs, I’m sure you have a lot to mull over.
What stands out to you from George’s takes? As always, my inbox is open for stories, insights, or whatever else is on your mind.
More from MSP Radio
Missed Things?
How about our latest videos to catch you up?
The Daily Podcast available as videos
From Software Development to Cybersecurity: A New MSP’s Journey with Nerds to Go’s Paul Ongioni
Exploring AI Trends with Yusuf Khan, Head of Data Science at Constellation
Service Leadership Profitability Report: Trends & Business Models with Peter Kujawa
Data Security, AI Governance, and Data Management in SaaS and AI Applications with Yasir Ali
Sustainability, AI, and Growth in IT Services: Insights from Rackspace President Srini Koushik
AI Promise in Business Ops: Boosting Productivity, Labor Impact, & Ethical Concerns w/ Colin Britton
Want the Daily News?
All the stories from the daily Business of Tech Podcast are available in the daily digest, and stories are available to everyone for the first five days, and Patreon supporters forever. Catch the audio of the show anytime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find podcasts. Links at businessof.tech
Copyright © 2024 MSP Radio, All rights reserved.
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.