Top 12 Biggest MSP Trends

Top 12 Biggest MSP Trends and Opportunities for 2022

Top 12 biggest MSP trends and some of the most exciting information, and opportunities in the Managed Services Providers space for 2022 was something that StorPool has been collecting during the time working with and for Managed Service Providers.

Some researchers say that the managed services market will grow by around 50% over the next five years. Business owners and leaders are now increasingly aware that external expertise is required if you want to have an efficient business that is in pace with the new emerging technologies.

The industry projections show that by 2023 the industry will reach $282 billion, with a surge of more than 50%. Check out the top 12 biggest MSP trends and opportunities that companies from that space will be chasing this year.

Opportunity 1 – High Performance and Scalability 

High performance and scalable software-defined IT infrastructure that can run mission-critical workloads are what the MSP industry yearns for; however, the implementation and deployment of such infrastructure is a complex process that usually demands a lot of expertise and care to discover a robust and powerful solution. What MSPs will be going after is the creation and implementation of systems that make their business more efficient.

Opportunity 2 – Automation

The Managed Services Providers Industry and many others are now going towards the adoption of automation. Removing repetitive and redundant tasks and workloads is a priority for companies that have process optimization and efficiency on their agenda. For MSPs, this leads to a new set of priorities focused on customer and employee satisfaction.

Opportunity 3 – Security 

Securing and guarding business infrastructure against attacks is a truly challenging endeavor. Identifying the most vulnerable attack vectors of your infrastructure and then building the solutions that will safeguard and secure them, and let’s not forget about the monitoring part, is a massive challenge for MSPs. That is why we believe that storage solutions can be and will be a foundational necessity for the industry and, of course, from a business perspective, can be seen as an untapped opportunity for an additional recurring revenue source for MSPs.

Opportunity 4 – Productivity Measurement

Managed service providers rely on their productivity and efficiency. That is but one of the criteria for selecting them over another company. The customer needs and demands are not only changing by the minute, but the requirements they have are increasing towards better performance, uptime, and results-based outcomes. This all requires MSPs to evolve to the point where they offer to their clients the ability to measure results.

Opportunity 5 – Shrinking IT Budgets

Acquiring customers is the biggest challenge expected by 43% of MSPs based on the Kaseya 2021 Global MSP Benchmark Survey Report, — if they can offload equipment purchases from their customers by investing in their own infrastructure, they can charge monthly for fully-managed virtual private clouds tailored to the needs of their specific end customers – as a result, they can free up capital dollars for their customers while growing their business.

Opportunity 6 – Reduce IT Staffing

During the COVID years and because of hybrid work it has become really hard to recruit and retain good in-house IT professionals. The ones that a company can get could increase the overhead for them big time. Companies like StorPool, however, can help MSPs optimize their IT staff without compromising the quality of the services they offer. This helps MSPs and their staff give their attention to projects and endeavors that are more strategically important and aim to grow their business.

Opportunity 7 – Remote Workforce

Managed Service providers have paved the way during the COVID-19 pandemic for remote employees to get things done. Introducing and optimizing appropriate systems and platforms has helped companies ensure they have all the assets and productivity tools that their employees need. The need for people to work remotely has allowed MSPs to step up and provide the service quality that caters to their customers’ needs. In 2022 we will see more of that, but it will evolve towards introducing new tools and technologies like virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that help businesses optimize their remote workforces’ productivity while reducing the capital costs for edge devices.

Opportunity 8 – Education

Having mentioned the previous trend caused by the pandemic, we also have to cover one other market: education. As with remote work, remote education requires a lot of infrastructure updates, security management, and remote learning capabilities and functionalities to be set up and deployed. Some MSPs focus on that market but we believe that many MSPs should consider serving higher education as it has been a huge missed opportunity for them. We expect all that to change during 2022 and to witness more MSP companies going down that road.

Opportunity 9 – vCIO (Virtual CIO); CIO-as-a-Service; remote CIO

This is not a typical service or offering that you would get from an MSP. But the ones that do offer it get incredibly valuable benefits. The vCIO is exactly what a CIO is in any given company. The difference is that the recommendations and advice you would get for your company’s technology come from an MSP or someone not in-house. Why is this going to be a huge trend? Well, simply because we have witnessed a large number of companies growing at a rapid pace, and it is practically impossible to keep up with that growth and technology demand and at the same time find someone for your in-house team that will lead the company through all this quickly and efficiently.

Opportunity 10 – Transition to SaaS Applications

Managed Service Providers transition to host demanding SaaS applications for their customers, such as Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) platforms, Managed Database as a service (DBaaS), supply chain management software, customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, and so on. In essence, MSPs can accommodate critical infrastructure, which used to reside on end customer’ premises.

Opportunity 11 – Consolidation (Unified Platforms and Solutions)

Consolidation is something that will most probably be on the top of the list for MSPs in 2022. The reason for this is, MSPs are now spending a lot of time switching from platform A and B and going from their products and services then back to their website. Now imagine how quick and efficient the service gets after that tour. This has already helped them realize that they can improve their operations, productivity, and, of course, services. Adopting platforms that eliminate the jumping from tool to tool is what MSPs will be looking for in 2022.

Opportunity 12 – Green Tech Solutions

MSPs could be the key players when we talk about climate-conscious companies. Now MSPs can provide co-location or IaaS solutions and make sure they select the optimal equipment so that they can address the significant environmental costs that businesses face these days. Helping companies lower their environmental footprint can be a good offering or differentiator for MSPs in 2022.

In Conclusion:

The top 12 biggest MSP trends list will definitely grow and change through time. The year 2022 will be hard for a lot of businesses from different industries for sure. But we at StorPool believe that in the hardest of times companies can become stronger, so they can establish a resilient foundation for their business and future growth. Managed IT services providers should be on top of their game by closely watching the industry trends and changes, as well as our top 12 biggest MSP trends article and updates, so they can be more agile and easily adapt their offering, sales, and of course messaging in order to meet the needs of the post-pandemic era that we all hope will come soon.

“With StorPool, you can bring your data home using the technologies you need, and pay as you grow – with no fixed term commitments. Our MSP customers tell us that they like StorPool because it aligns well with their business operations. They understand the value of offloading heavy IT tasks – because that’s what they do for their customers. We do the same thing for them with storage, so they can focus on delivering higher-order value.” says Alex Ivanov, Product Lead at StorPool Storage.

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