SMEs Increasingly Call On MSPs for Help

MSPs are becoming indispensable to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with increasing numbers turn to them for IT management.

That’s one of the findings from new research by JumpCloud, which notes a growing reliance on MSPs in IT operations. While 76% of SMEs rely on an MSP for some features, 42% of organizations use an MSP to completely manage their IT environment. This is a 56% increase from April 2023.

The survey of 1200 SME IT decision-makers in the U.K., U.S., and India found that organizations rely on MSPs for variety of functions. System security is the most common area (57%), followed by cloud storage (52%), system monitoring (51%), system management (47%), managed backup (40%), hardware procurement (34%), business continuity/disaster recovery (32%), help desk (35%) and change management (27%).

Respondents see MSPs as offering a broad range of benefits. The top reasons SMEs report using an MSP are that they are up to date on the latest technologies (65%). They also provide a better user experience (60%) and they are cost-effective (57%).

MSPs Helping SMEs with Economic, Tech Concerns

MSPs are stepping up to help SME customers wrestling with economic uncertainties, the survey revealed.

Concerns about layoffs persist: Fifty-seven percent of organizations have experienced layoffs over the last year. Admins also are worried about the impact of budget cuts on security. Seventy-two percent agree that any cuts to their security budgets will increase organizational risk, and 56% are more concerned about their organizations’ security posture than they were six months ago.

Meanwhile, licensing costs increase while compliance mandates expand. Eighty-eight percent report vendors have increased prices over the last six months, and 76% report increased compliance and regulations requirements in their region.

JumpCloud's Greg Keller

“People are being forced to do more with less,” Greg Keller, CTO, JumpCloud told Channel Futures. “SMEs do not have the budgets, they do not have the headcount, and there is a dearth of expertise that is running as a theme throughout these organizations. In this set of 1,200 customers, we’re seeing a one-IT-person-to-100-per-employee ratio. So that is a ton of imbalance. And they’re looking for automation and expertise. This is where we’re seeing the move toward adoption of MSPs.

“MSPs are being looked upon as [experts and a] very economically efficient way to outsource.”