Automation, Cybersecurity, Integration Top the List of Priorities for MSPs in 2023

• About 90% of respondents said automation is a crucial technology for their business because it improves efficiency, allows them to take on more clients, and generates more revenue by automating common processes, such as endpoint management, monitoring, patching, ticket resolution and cybersecurity.
• 64% of executives and 54% technicians who responded to the survey picked automation, including auto-remediation of tickets, as their top remote monitoring and management feature.
• 15% of respondents chose cybersecurity as the top IT challenge their clients expect to face this year as compared to last year.
• About 65% of respondents said most, or all, of their clients have asked for cybersecurity advice.
• 90% of respondents agree that integration between core applications is critical to their business. It helps them streamline their processes, reduce duplication of efforts and automate repetitive tasks.

"This report drives home the importance of automation and integration to make MSPs more productive, efficient and profitable. Cybersecurity will continue to be a pressing issue, and MSPs will need to be up-to-speed on their security offerings to keep pace with SMB demand.”

• About 63% of executives surveyed said that integration enabled them to take on more clients and expand their business, with 54% saying fewer technicians were needed to manage the workload.
• 49% of the executives said integration helped them cut costs.
• About 60% of both executives and technicians surveyed are dissatisfied or neutral when it comes to work-life balance. Managing everyday mundane tasks causes them to struggle with getting their workload under control and even end up experiencing acute burnout.

• The top services that respondents intend to offer in 2023 fall under the cybersecurity umbrella — identity and access management, security awareness training and dark web monitoring.
• The percentage of respondents who back up their customers’ SaaS applications, such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or Salesforce, increased to 83% from 78% in 2022.
• 32% of the respondents evaluate their threat landscape monthly and 35% evaluate quarterly, while only 11% do so annually and 1% never do so.
• Technician respondents said that enhanced security services recorded the most growth in the last 12 months; executives reported it as second place.
• For executives, subscription-based managed services took the top spot, with business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) service featured among the top four service categories.

• The primary challenges MSPs anticipate are acquiring more customers as the MSP space intensifies (35% of executives).
• Dealing with advanced and sophisticated security threats (21% of technicians).
• The percentage of respondents who said supply chain impact is significant dropped from 35% to 28% in 2023.

• 51% reported break-fix as their most time-consuming activity. However, it is only the third most lucrative revenue stream according to executive respondents (39%).
• Subscription-based managed services is the top revenue generator according to 68% of executive participants and the second most time-consuming activity according to 43% of technicians.
• 34% of the respondents said they get between 1-25% of their revenue from co-managed IT services. Another 29% said they get between 26 and 50 percent of their revenue from it.
• About 51% of the respondents are keen to participate in some form of M&A activity. Of this group, about 14% said it is their primary growth strategy. Last year, only 36% of the respondents were bullish on it.