EP236 – The State of the IT Channel in 2025
with Greg Jones & Ian Luckett

IAN: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we talked to Greg Jones about the state of the nation in 2025.

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million, and if already there, get to five and go faster at the end of the day. Isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. It's been a little while. Now we've got the man, the myth, the legends. Greg Jones, back on the podcast. Good morning. Afternoon, Greg. How you doing?

GREG: Hey, Ian, nice to see you. And a huge welcome to the MSP audience.

IAN: Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we caught up at the MSP show a couple of weeks ago, and I thought, we haven't had Greg on, we haven't had some of his wisdom, the, the insights. This man who is just constantly seems to be traveling everywhere. Learning about what's going on. So I thought, let's get him on the podcast and let's rinse that opportunity to spend half an hour with him and find out what's kind of like going on. So for those people who do not know who you are, Greg, just introduce yourself. Who are you? What'd you do, and who'd you help?

GREG: Yeah, absolutely. So hi everyone. I'm Greg Jones. I am Kaseya Senior Vice President of MSP in EMEA. I also look after some of the North America market for certain things, but ultimately my role and team's role is everything. A Kaseya that's kind of away from products and services. Right. I know that sounds a little bit odd. But yes, we're product evangelists, but more importantly, my team's role is. Helping and supporting the MSP community on there. Business, operational maturity level journey, really. So we travel the globe, as you said, Ian, looking for knowledge, insight, wisdom just to see really what's going on out there, what's working, what's not just to bring it back for MSPs to help them grow and scale the business.

IAN: Fantastic. And you do that so well and everything that you guys at, at Datto doing, particularly the work that you are doing with you know, and the way, that way that you approach things. Absolutely love it. Hence, hence, wanted to get you back on. So in the last six months, the last year, how, in your opinion, how's it been feeling for MSPs? How have MSPs been feeling? Is it, has it been an easy ride? Has it been a hard ride? Are they going uphill, downhill, left right? You know what, what's your kind of view on, on what's happened in the last 12 months?

GREG: Yeah, so it's, it's a great question, Ian, and it's a real mixed response really. And I'm going to bring it closer to home, and just talk about Kaseya for a moment around our growth, because there's a reason for that. We're currently, at the moment, it's a very buoyant market, which seems odd in terms of, you know, geopolitical issues around the world. Yes. Interest rates, inflation this, that and the other, and we're seeing some SMBs, SMEs pulling back and enterprises we're seeing, a slow down of enterprise larger scale, projects, which usually that means six months to 12 months later, that affects the SMB and SME world. Normally that's what happens. It's but at the moment we're seeing a very buoyant market. So we're currently growing at around about 16 point half percent organically in the business. And that's, you know, that's on some large revenue. That's, well, our overall revenue is about one and a half billion now. And I only say that not from, a muscle flex from Kaseya. It's more to say that is a feeling of what's happening in the MSP field because all of our businesses, through MSPs, well about 98% of our business flows through an MSP. So it's a very buoyant market. However, what I'm going to say next might sound counterintuitive to that, we’re a lot of MSPs that are concerned. Yeah, some struggling in terms of losing clients or clients looking to slow things down or reduce spending. And that's really interesting when we've got those pockets kind of a, around the globe happening really. What I would say is king at the moment to be able to ride and weather the storm, and we are in the best industry for that being technology is we are seeing businesses lean into technology to ride this turbulent time, if you like. Yeah. A lot of that are around some of the buzz buzzwords like ai, machine learning, business process automation, all of that good stuff. But really it's the MSPs that are really defining a true target customer profile that they want to go after. And I'm not just talking about kind of the size of the business, the geographical location, the vertical and stuff like that. But really MSPs starting to look at the behavior and characteristics of the businesses that they want to work with, which ultimately is about weeding out lifestyle businesses. MSPs do not want to be working with lifestyle businesses because those businesses, there's nothing wrong with them. They're great businesses, but their number one job is to protect that lifestyle coming in. So when your prices go up, they see it as you're taken away from that new car, family holiday, retirement plan, whatever it might be. Whereas the businesses that are looking to grow and scale are the ones that see, they need to lean into technology, need to spend, you know, that speculate to accumulate mentality and really trying to pick those is key. You know, you can look at behaviors of, you know, are they regulated? Are they a member of a governing body? Are they a member of a, I do not know, it might be a chamber of commerce or a institute of directors that shows that they arguably not happy with the status quo. They're looking to do more, are they engaged with a business coach, you know they're really the ones so. It's really interesting at the moment we've seen the sales and marketing message as certainly needed to shift to adapt to the new world, and I don't think this is slowing down. You know, we've had a, in business there's always ups and downs and, you know, economic uncertainty or recession or, you know, we got caught by a pandemic. No one's seen that coming. There's always something in business. However, we seem to be getting more and more closer together with is with not issues but things we need to be mindful of. You know, COVID, geopolitical stuff going on in the Ukraine. Maybe it's stuff going on in the us you know, they seem to be coming faster. So what that is really indicating and what we're seeing are good knowledge of is the MSPs that are able to pivot quickly and be more agile are the ones that are turning in arguably challenging market into business success. Being able to pivot their message, pivot their marketing, how they go to market and who they're targeting really. So I know that's a lot to take in what I've just said. It's an unusual time in the market and I don't think it's slowing down as well. We're seeing a still a lot of M and A going on. M and A multiples have dropped for MSPs at the moment, but we're still seeing a lot of M and A going on out there in the market. We're also seeing a lot of telcos telecoms companies coming into the MSP space. Yes.

IAN: Yeah.

GREG: Yeah, we're seeing as well. An awful lot. I was at an event not long ago up in Glen Eagles a large event called comms Vision. Over 250 telcos there. And I asked the question to the audience, you know, who is looking to move into this space or next year? And every hand bar, I think there was three or four went up. And I asked the people who didn't put the hand up, why are you not looking to get into the market? It seemed an appropriate question. Yeah. They just said, you know, my big business is big enough, or it's a lifestyle business. Yeah. And you know, one guy was very honest. He said, I've made enough money, I'm done. You know? Yeah. But everyone else is looking to ride that wave now. So, and I think that's key for MSPs that they need to now be pivoting and really upping their game. Because if we look at the telcos, they're usually. Typically very, very good at sales. Very good. Mm-hmm. And also they're very good at customer service as well in the telco space, traditionally when we look at it. So those two, if they get the MSP right arm. Right. And there's a lot to get. Right, of course. Yeah. You know, it's not easy this no one. But if they get that right, , that's a worrying combination of fast success.

For them, which means they're taking from market share for the other MSPs and we're still seeing new MSPs pop up all the time. You know, we're now transacting with over 50,000 MSPs globally on a monthly basis. And there's new logos, and I don't mean just new logos from Kaseya, I mean net, net new logos that are just starting up. And so it's really interesting at the moment, Ian.

IAN: Absolutely massive fire hose there, which is great for lots of information that we've got there. But what I really want to just dig into now is the, we we're talking about, you know, where people have, have got their sales marketing up and running, and we understand the target avatar and all this sort of thing, but you're mentioning talking about , the businesses, the way we need to pivot and where we need to move in how some of these businesses were, whether they be compliance or whether they be, you know, regulatory. We all talked about security, as you sort of say for, for a long, long time right now. But where do you see that landscape changing in? because I think it's really fascinating the way you mentioned at the beginning about. How, what the enterprise do affects the SMEs at the end of the day and having your eye on that prize and what's going on with that, you know, and that, and that kind of like ripple effect coming down. So pivot ability, you know, what does that kind of look like for MSPs? What does it, what does it mean when we've got to understand the behavior of these people? Have we, do we not just serve my because that's what they want. Is it, is it changing right now? What does that look like?

GREG: Yeah, that's a great question, Ian.

And it's, it's. More and more so less about it now. It just so happens that MSPs, you know, we use it to deliver the service, but a lot of SMBs, SMEs and arguably even enterprises are looking more for support with that, aligning the technology with the business IT processes and. Everything really does filter down from the SMB mar the enterprise space into the S-M-B-S-M-E market, and it's usually about 18 months behind. So what do I mean by that? Well, we can see it if we look back at trends in the past, and we can certainly see it now. So if we look at enterprises today. A lot of them now are mandating in contracts and RFPs and tenders. Yeah. That, yes, not only you need to do cybersecurity, but they're looking at that full supply chain management. Yeah. Around the likes of compliance, you know, how are you responsibly delivering as an S-M-B-S-M-E compliance? You know, for, for any contracts you look after and things in that mandated, the likes of obviously GDPR listed NIST two, dora, maybe even HIPAA if they've got a US entity. So it's really interesting that things that we can pivot into are also great business opportunities. The likes of compliance as a service. At the moment, that's running at about 70% profitability on compliance as a service. Very tasty, very profitable, and also a huge tamp, huge total addressable market to go after the not a lot of MSPs are doing right now. Whether you outsource it, whether you do some in house. What is interesting at the moment in one of our most recent MSP reports is the number one reason that an SMB or an SME is leaving an MSP or finding a new MSP is not because of poor service, it's actually because the MSP doesn't provide either the service, the technology, or tools that SMBs need to drive their business forward. So the business arena's changing massively. We've got the younger generation coming through. Yeah. You know, that have very different expectations of technology. Very different. You know, they're very much software as a service. If they don't have it on the PC, they need something. They go to a website register, get a trial, do it, and their uptime expectations. Well, they just expect things to be on permanent 24 7 as and when they want it. It's just a very different business world, but we're also seeing huge opportunities. For MSPs in the enterprise space, typically the lower end of the enterprise bought around, co-managed IT. Now, COVID kicked that off really because MSPs, you know, got businesses up and running and kickstarted the industry going again and the cogs of industry turning. But what that really identified when the enterprises look back was actually, we were not as agile to get up and running as the smaller SMBs and SMEs. Why was that? Well. The common denominator usually was an MSP. Yeah. It wasn't in internal IT or resources. So we're seeing a lot of enterprises pivot and ask for advice and guidance and even continuity for staff coverage or out of hours or holiday cover. So there's a huge opportunity there. So the market is massively changing really, and I believe that. MSPs really need to pivot in these next, you know, 12, 18 months because the market is drastically changing. It's very good, it's very buoyant, but we need to, move with what the market is wanting and the needs really not. A case of, Hey, we're just going to sell what we've got on the truck. because we know how to do that. People are looking for more than just, I answer the phone quick. We're good. We were founded in 1982. Yeah. Well, no one cares. Yeah. All they're interested in is the business outcomes and we're seeing. More reliance upon how an MSP can use technology to empower the end business with business results. And a lot of that, in many cases come back to not necessarily bleeding or leading edge technology. Sometimes it's about common sense and business sense around. Hey, that business process is wrong for this technology. You know, hey, there is a better way to do this. You can automate this. Yes, you could put in some of the buzzwords if you want to use ai, machine learning and all of that jazz. But fundamentally, at the core, what we need to be doing is empower businesses. To streamline their business processes. because that is where they're saving time and money and freeing up, you know, employees time, which is usually the most expensive resource to any business. What they want to see is you're not only delivering good IT, but you're improving productivity within the business. As an MSP, it's also great to display that because. We no longer then just have to tap into the IT budget. Now we can start tapping into the, I don't know, the r and d or the training, yeah, HR training, development, budget. You know, how can we empower these staff to ultimately do more with less? Because if you aren't going to do it, Mr. MSPA, we're going to find Mr. MSPB. Do we so I think we're moving to more of a business MSP, you know, business process, MSP.

IAN: Do you know, it was just really interesting just as you were, as you were talking there, Greg, and is, I was just about to ask you the question. So what's all this new technology? What's all the shiny balls we need to get? But I'm not going to ask you that because what I was just kind of processing as you were saying there, was that in the pandemic like businesses needed MSPs because they needed to get on board with the technology. So they basically went to an MSP and took, and correct me if I'm wrong, this is just my kind of perception is, you know, the MSP was saying, this is my offering, which ones you want? Let's do more of it. Great. We're going to help with your technology. And that was kind of like the pandemic and all of that palava as we'll call it. Now, as you've got more and more, and you can't even say this, I mean, this just goes to show how many gray hairs would be on my head if I didn't cut them. Like the millennials are actually, they're quite old people now. Right? It's all the other gen, whatever they want to call them. But these people are, you know, they're grading standard customer service against Apple and against some of these people they get online who just deliver amazing customer service. So that's kind of what they expect. But now as you kind of, like you mention, they're now saying, well, do you do this and do you do that? So do, is that a fair statement to say that the SME. Is now getting more educated in what's possible. Not necessarily what technology, but what's possible with technology and is now coming to the MSP and saying, Hey, can you do this? And they're going, well, I don't know. because it's not in the stack and they're freaking out. Has it turned, has the table turned the other way do you think?

GREG: I think a little bit in terms of, you know, the younger generation coming in, they're just digital natives. They just get it. They do probably in their own lives, away from the business arena using more tech than if we went back, you know, just the few years in, in the most complex business arena. We're just using a few apps. And you know, they want to be able to work from anywhere. They want to be able to work from their phones, not even traditional laptops, you know? Yeah. Bring any device. But also have different ways to go about things. So even how they interact. I have some people on my staff team very, you know, excellent individuals. They don't like speaking on a telephone that to them is old school. For me. I'm like, Christ's sake, pick up the phone, do that. And they're like, I'm going to do it via Twitter. And I'm like, okay. You know, I let go of the grapevine and let them run rather than micromanaging. It works for them. They get the outcome, but again, that's how they want to be communicated with and how they want to do business. And it's the same when we're going out now. Having these business conversations but also. How we do business, you know how they expect to get a contract digitally signed, all of that. Okay. It's not rocket science, but they want to be able to interact at any time of the day on their chosen method of communication, their platform, whatever it might be. And it might be your phone, but it might be they just want to send the WhatsApp message into your business. Yeah. It might be the one of Teams or Slack, or it could be something else. Those are the things that really put off the younger generation, and you've got to remember the younger generation are super smart, super quick, working up the ranks quick. We're seeing a lot of them now starting to get in or near around C-suite. Yeah. Which totally changes the market dynamics of how business has done.

IAN: Yeah, it does. And I guess that's just that reminder of just, of just saying, you know, stop hearing people and, and keep listening to people on what they're wanting. But you know, what you've just mentioned about, you know, business process automation, like, and empowering their business so that we get their end results for their business and what they want using technology, not necessarily going off and buying a whole new load of kit because most of the kit you've got will absolutely fine, but it's just the kind of, the way you've packaged it, isn't it?

GREG: Yeah, and I think Ian, you come back to a good point there around, I think you mentioned earlier, around getting into the weeds with those businesses, understanding them. That is absolutely key. Sometimes I. Taking away all the, the it buzzwords. The speeds, the feeds, the latest widget and talk to them on a business level, hey, what are you, your challenges with your customers? What are your business processes that you're struggling with? What do you not like when it, yeah, what are the good things we see with reviews from MSPs? Is when they go in and do an audit of exactly where a business is using technology today, where they want to get to with their business plan and then give them a roadmap to drive that change or taking it a level down. Whereas they're not just having these conversations at C-Suite, they're going to each of the individual departments and working with, I don't know, Mary or John in finance to say. Hey, look, we really want to help. What are your challenges around technology? Or on a bigger picture, what are your challenges in your job? Yeah. What are the bits Yeah. That are a pain in the ass that you don't like doing? Yeah. Or what are the laborious, mundane things that you doing over and over? And then look to how you can streamline or get rid of them. One of the big things for doing that is for the MSP to get to shows, not necessarily IT and technology shows. Get to the shows of your customers, the verticals that they serve.

IAN: Yeah,

GREG: I was laughing the other day. I was driving back from London past Birmingham. And there was a roof con. It was a roofing convention and it was called Roof con. So all of these industries have. Upon, or you know, go and see what is hot and what is topical, spend a day so that you can come back to your customers as the informed one to say – Hey, I seen this. Did you know about this? Hey, your industry is pivoting to X, Y, and Z, or, we can help you with that. And some of the biggest wins you'll find, again, it's not bleeding edge, it's not leading edge, it's just, you are taking away an old task, and usually when you say to them, Hey, Ian, explain to me why is it you do it that way? Yeah. You'll probably say to me, Ian, well, that's the way we've always done it, or, yeah. Brian showed me. Who's Brian or Brian retired. Well, maybe that business process should have retired when Brian retired because like, and I've seen everything from people even today in 2025, manually reconciling expenses rather than using something like I don't, whatever zero or...

IAN: Yeah.

GREG: SAP business one, Sage 500 and we laugh and joke about it, but that is eating time from that business, which is eaten into profitability and profitability and it...

IAN: And it's eating that thinking time for you to, you know, to go and think of other things that's going to help innovate and improve the efficiency in your business, whether it's your MSP or your customers as well. I've got to ask you this question, Greg, because we, I have no idea because we've decided to record this on a different platform. I have no idea how long we've been recording for now. We could probably go for hours, but we're not going to. What are you excited about for the rest of this year, Greg? What's the things that you are really looking forward to, to popping up in the channel?

GREG: We've got some big announcements coming out in d Ocon in a couple of weeks time out in Dublin. Unfortunately we're a little bit early on this podcast, so I can't talk about them. We have got a, you know, a good few announcements at that event. I'm really excited about the acceleration of Kaseya 365 that we've brought to market to help MSPs. And that for us is just. A game changer. Really, it's not about Kaseya and Datto, it's really about putting profitability back into the deals. For MSPs, we have literally dropped all of the margin to bring this subscription to market. That's one thing, but also, peer groups, generally I can see traction around peer groups, which, you know, that really excites me because I can see the impact it's having on business owners. And , it's not about just changing their business, it's also about changing their lives. Giving them time back, you know, from holidays, time with loved ones and them not being chained to the business, letting go of the grapevine. So. I'd say, they're probably. The top things for me. There's a load that could keep going on and on, but for me, peer groups, the impact it's having change in MSPs. Yeah.

IAN: Yeah. It's massive and we've always said that you know, if someone gets some help and everybody will get some help from different places and there's lots of opportunities to do that. We've just created the ultimate MSP growth guide that I'll put the link in these show notes actually to go and check out and to work out if. When you are ready to decide, when you've decided that you're ready to grow your MSP, you can go and check it out and find out what's going on with that. Or find out what help is the right help to get because one help might not be the same as a different help. And you might go into one peer group and it'll work and you might go into a program and it doesn't work , and all of those kind of great things. But I think what we're saying is just get some help. You knowwhatever it is, go to the events, go to some of the you know, meet up with other people. It's an amazing channel to help businesses grow such a collaborative space, isn't it?

GREG: Yeah, and I'd say as well, you know, accept as well where you are, own it. You know, I have never, in all the years of doing consultancy and being on the MSP side, I've never met a perfect MSP. I've met very big, profitable, small, very profitable ones. I've never met a perfect MSP. There is no utopia, right? There's always work to do. And, you know, , us as humans and business owners, we are better together. You know, there's no. Clever ass out there. It's a collection of ultimately hundreds and thousands of MSPs coming together, sharing best practice. It's a bit like, if you look at, I guess if we look back in history, Ian, if we looked at the medical field, you know, many years ago from giving out arsenic to where we're at today, , and that wasn't one person who was, you know, collectively an industry. That's right. We just need to level up and continually evolve.

IAN: Yeah. And there's always someone where you're at, there's always someone behind you and there's always going to be someone in front. So you'll always be able to offer value to the person behind you. You'll always learn from the person in front of you and you'll always learn from where you are at right now, which is brilliant. So. Exactly. Greg. Amazing show. Thank you very much for your insights on that. I was just thinking about the intro video before this, and, and it is going to go along the lines of if you don't want to scan all the newspapers and go to all the event, just listen to this because Greg Jones kind of like sums up the channel in the channel in a nutshell. Any last final thoughts for you today, Greg, before we leave you to your day?

GREG: Well to any Kase or Datto partners listening, just to say thank you for your business for all MSPs out there globally start pivoting now, you know, get the help and support you need. Reach out. Just start pivoting. There is opportunity in even in turbulent times, so embrace it. It's going to happen anyway. Just ride the wave rather than getting dragged along by it.

IAN: Be part of it. . . Lovely stuff. Thanks, Greg. As always, it's a pleasure talking to you. Great to catch up with you and look forward to seeing you in person. I'm sure real soon in the next couple of events or whatever. But enjoy your time where you are right now and catch up and speak to you soon.

GREG: Will do. Take care.

IAN: Take care, mate.

Bye now. Bye-bye.

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