Documentation automation capabilities will soon be broadly applied by managed service providers (MSPs) if Kaseya has its way. The provider of a widely used platform for managing MSP operations today announced it would resell the documentation automation platform developed by IT Glue.
Rather than requiring MSPs to set up separate relationships with two different vendors, MSPs will now be able to have a single integrated bill provided by Kaseya, says Mike Puglia, chief product officer at Kaseya.
Puglia says Kaseya plans to offer documentation automation capabilities to the over 10,000 MSPs that employ its platform because keeping track of configurations is a labor-intensive task because from an IT perspective no two end customers are alike.
“Every customer is a snowflake,” says Puglia.
If MSPs can automate the management of configurations their overall costs will significantly decline, adds Puglia.
The alliance with IT Glue will also extend into the realm of ongoing product development. The two companies will collaboratively invest in machine learning algorithms and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate a broad range of IT management functions, says Puglia.
The announcement to partner with IT Glue comes on the heels of a move by ConnectWise to partner with Liongard to make documentation automation available via the ConnectWise professional services automation (PSA) platform. Puglia says that Kaseya will remain open to integrating any documentation automation platform. But the company decided to partner with IT Glue more closely to both simplify billing and share ongoing research and development, says Puglia.
In the meantime, the biggest issue when it comes to MSPs embracing more advanced forms of IT automation continues to inertia. In theory, IT automation can enable MSPs to serve more customers because most of them don’t have the internal skills and resources required to scale much larger than they are today. But many of them are also reluctant to make platform investments in their business because they are uncertain what the return on investment (ROI) might be.
At this juncture, however, it’s becoming apparent that MSPs need to automate or die. Rival MSPs are making investments in automation with not only an eye towards expanding their reach but also driving costs down. It’s only a matter of time before those cost savings manifest themselves in more aggressive pricing as MSPs that have automated look to gain market share at the expense of those that have not.
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