MSP Update: Cybersecurity Consolidation, Plus Hatz AI’s No-Code AI App Builder for MSPs

While every service provider who reads MSSP Alert is looking to learn the most recent trends and issues in cybersecurity, we know that service providers are also interested in the rest of the tools they need to run their businesses including AI and IT management platforms such as RMM and PSA.

With that in mind, each week we bring you a wrap up of some of the best content we have run on affiliate site ChannelE2E.

This week includes several important stories including details about TD Synnex’s incoming CEO, a new AI platform offering MSPs a no-code AP application builder, and information about MSP tools vendor Syncro’s new AI Ticket enhancements.

Cybersecurity Consolidation: How One MSP Benefited by Standardizing

Many MSPs today agree that cybersecurity is the third pillar of their tech stack, the first two pillars being RMM and PSA. But that's a recent development. For years cybersecurity was an add-on service and often an after thought.

That was the case at Buffalo, New York-based MSP PCA Technology Group, which hummed along at approximately $5 million annual revenue for years. But PCA realized that there was a major opportunity for MSPs, driven by the demand for cybersecurity services amid an increasingly complex threat environment.

While many didn't think of cybersecurity as an SMB problem back then, PCA realized it was a multi-faceted opportunity: They could boost revenue, expand their customer base and at the same time increase the average size of their customer.

"We were at about $5 million revenue for years, but about five years ago we started looking at ways to boost the revenue through managed services and cybersecurity," Stephen Neuss, director of sales at PCA Technology Group, Inc., told ChannelE2E. "We have clients usually sized at anywhere between 25 and 250 people. Our customers have tripled in size," he added.

Read the full story here.

Hatz AI Offers MSPs a No-Code AI Application Builder

Canalys has said (about 10 months ago) that the AI sales opportunity in the channel right now is with systems integrators and that MSPs and MSSPs would follow on in 18 months.

Maybe so, but there are plenty of vendors and MSPs/MSSPs that are working right now on how MSPs and MSSPs will help their customers implement AI and realize the benefits of AI.

One start up vendor in this area is Hatz AI, co-founded and led by Jimmy Hatzell, an alum of some of the more familiar cybersecurity vendors MSPs know including Cyber QP, Barracuda MSP and SKOUT Cybersecurity (which was acquired by Barracuda for its MDR technology).

Hatz AI released its first products in March — AI Chat and AI Application Builder.

Read the full story here.

6 Things to Know: TD Synnex’s Incoming CEO

Patrick Zammit will take the helm of TD Synnex as CEO starting on September 1, stepping in to replace retiring CEO Rich Hume who will remain on the board of directors.

The change comes at a monumental moment for the channel and the IT industry as cloud computing, cybersecurity and AI are all altering the landscape for everyone including technology and IT distributors, MSPs, MSSPs and all channel partners.

The change also comes as TD Synnex, and the channel as a whole, mourns the recent passing of former Tech Data CEO Bob Dutkowsky, a legend in the industry. (I had the honor and pleasure of interviewing Dutkowsky many times when he was heading Tech Data and I was at Channel Insider. He always made himself available to members of the press. He was a true leader in the market.)

TD Synnex is poised to take on a new era, and recently created and launched MSP Evolve, an aggregation of its resources and tools specifically designed to optimize operational excellence and accelerate business growth for the unique needs of managed service providers.

What will the leadership change at TD Synnex mean for MSPs? Certainly the new MSP Evolve program has been in the works under Zammit’s leadership as COO. Many vendors and distributors recognize that MSPs are a growing force in the industry and that other channel partner types, including solution providers, are adding managed service revenue streams to their business models.

ChannelE2E expects to see these trends continue. In addition, ChannelE2E expects distributors such as TD Synnex to play a major role in helping MSPs leapfrog their efforts around providing advanced technologies such as AI to their end customers.

Read the full story here.

MSP Tools Vendor Syncro Rolls Out AI Ticket Help

MSP tools platform upstart Syncro has rolled out a new AI-powered Smart Ticket Management solution within its existing platform.

The company said in a statement that the feature is purpose built to boost MSPs’ ability to remediate more tickets more effectively with less time and effort.

Syncro, which named former Continuum CEO Michael George as its new top executive in February, is one of many MSP tools providers to add AI-powered help to its core platform.

Syncro pitches itself as a unified remote monitoring and management (RMM) and professional services automation (PSA) platform. These are the two key tools/platforms that are considered the core of every MSPs operations and stack.

Read the full story here.