Automation, AI, SaaS Management, and MSP Growth with Mark Ralls of Auvik

[00:00:01] Dave Sobel here at IT Nation Connect with another bonus episode. I'm talking with Mark Ralls, the President of Auvik. Mark, thanks for joining me today.

[00:00:09] Thank you so much for having me, Dave. I'm very excited.

[00:00:11] I'm excited to talk to you too, in particular because I think you're in a space that really intrigues me by the power of automation. And I'm intentionally leading with automation, although implied in that is some AI.

[00:00:21] I don't want this to be an AI cycle conversation, but actually because I think there's some real capabilities that are becoming empowered by what we're seeing on those models. Give me a little bit of a sense of the way you're thinking about that automation, AI-powered transformation and what it means.

[00:00:39] Yeah. So as we think about it from Auvik, obviously we are a network monitoring and management vendor at our core. We also now are in SaaS management as well.

[00:00:46] We launched a product there previously after we acquired SaaS Leo. And as we think about our role, so much of what we do, particularly within the overall ConnectWise ecosystem, is with our ability to proactively monitor the network, to understand what's happening, where there might be issues, and then drive alerts, very dynamic, very customized alerts, into the platform that our partners use.

[00:01:11] That's a lot of where we see our role in both automation and also in the power of AI, is that we're feeding some very, very important critical data into the platforms that our partners use every day.

[00:01:24] Okay. And that a lot of the automation will take place at that level.

[00:01:27] Okay. Now, we're obviously in our own roadmap looking at expanding our own automation capabilities.

[00:01:33] You know, not everyone is using, you know, the same RMM or wants that capability to exist within the RMM or the PSA.

[00:01:41] But at least in the near term, that's where we see our biggest, you know, potential to help our customers.

[00:01:46] Because at the end of the day, we want the alerts and information to go where the technician is and where the technician is working.

[00:01:52] And that's not always going to be obvious. We understand that. We're fine with that.

[00:01:56] So as you're thinking about kind of the strategic direction of this, give me a little bit of sense of what areas excite you most.

[00:02:01] Like I can see that there's an element of you can do anomaly detection and log review better.

[00:02:06] Or it can help be smarter about creating the automations.

[00:02:10] Or it could be about reporting enhancements.

[00:02:13] And knowing that it would be easy to say everything, but that's not reality.

[00:02:19] You've probably got areas that interest you. Give me a little bit more of the areas that interest you of what's possible.

[00:02:24] Yeah. So what we're doing now, and this gets into some of the features we've recently released,

[00:02:29] is how do we allow and enable technicians to get to the heart of the issue much faster.

[00:02:36] Right. And so one of the things we released this year is a feature we call North Star.

[00:02:39] Okay. And so when there is an issue with a particular device, it allows the technician to jump in and do, you know,

[00:02:46] UI-based path tracing where they can actually visualize the network, visualize the path that device is taken in the network.

[00:02:52] You know, what switches is it going through? What firewalls is it going through?

[00:02:55] Are there perhaps issues at one particular stop along the way?

[00:02:59] And that way they can really hone in on and pinpoint an issue faster.

[00:03:03] Obviously, you know, the first step is to kind of allow that level of troubleshooting to take place and to allow the technician to do it.

[00:03:09] The next step obviously would be to drive that more automatically.

[00:03:12] Got you.

[00:03:12] And to be able to pinpoint that faster and do that with, you know, whether that's AI enabled, you know, or through other automations.

[00:03:19] Those are things that we're looking at.

[00:03:21] Okay. Pivoting a little bit because I'd like to get a little bit more of your sense of the way you're thinking about SaaS management.

[00:03:26] Yes.

[00:03:26] Because everyone starts with SaaS management and they say the same thing.

[00:03:29] So, oh, we do Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, right?

[00:03:32] It starts there.

[00:03:33] That's right.

[00:03:33] And in a way it kind of fizzles a little bit.

[00:03:35] That's right.

[00:03:35] Because I get it.

[00:03:36] It's a really hard, complicated problem.

[00:03:39] Yeah.

[00:03:39] But with as much SaaS management as is out there, this is clearly an area that we need to get better at.

[00:03:45] Talk to me about the way you're thinking about solving that problem.

[00:03:48] Yeah.

[00:03:48] So this is why we were so enamored with SaaS Leo and why we made that acquisition is because they are taking a slightly different approach to SaaS management than a lot of SaaS management vendors.

[00:03:58] And that approach is a combination of obviously a really good grasp around shadow IT.

[00:04:03] Shadow IT has huge cost implications, but it also has big security implications.

[00:04:07] The other approach that the SaaS Leo team that took and it's built in down to Avax SaaS management is the ability to get very, very detailed, proactive alerting around things like shared logins and around the use of personal accounts on what may be authorized applications.

[00:04:27] You might say, hey, everyone gets a company Dropbox accounts.

[00:04:30] But if someone is logging in to Dropbox with their personal credentials and is extracting company information into their personal Dropbox account, that's a huge security risk.

[00:04:39] Right.

[00:04:39] And not all SaaS management vendors have been so, I would say, leaned in on discovering those things.

[00:04:46] Shared credentials is another great example.

[00:04:47] I think as you and I both know, at the root of the Solomons hack, as an example, was an issue around a shared credential.

[00:04:55] Perhaps the breach could have occurred in other ways, but that's the way it did occur.

[00:04:58] Right.

[00:04:58] So understanding shared credentials, where they're in use, who has access.

[00:05:02] And then when someone with access leaves the organization, how do you trigger and ensure that shared credential gets changed so that you are preventing someone who's no longer with the company from having access to company assets.

[00:05:14] And so these are all ways that we think our approach to SaaS management is pretty differentiated because it does give you the ability, again, to help your partners to help their customer reduce costs.

[00:05:25] You know, find competing tools, you're on the Microsoft stack, hey, you see Slack and use, how do we get those folks on teams, whatever the case is.

[00:05:34] But we think really the security play is one of the most important and critical plays and frankly just value add plays that we bring.

[00:05:41] Now, interesting in that SaaS space, the SaaS platforms themselves are actually highly motivated to not expose management controls, right?

[00:05:49] The more they can do to keep you on their platform, the better, that's better for their retention.

[00:05:53] You're in the business of trying to get into the management of as many as possible.

[00:05:58] Yes, yes.

[00:05:58] How do you resolve that tension?

[00:06:00] So we are constantly working with vendors, working with partners, leveraging their APIs because it is really important that we are building really robust onboarding and offboarding tools.

[00:06:13] That's a huge, you know, when you think about for our partners that are thinking about adopting SaaS management, that may not be a cost they can pass through immediately to their customers.

[00:06:21] It may not be an offering they can price right away, but if they can get, if they can save technician hours on onboarding and offboarding, which consumes a lot of time, that's obviously an immediate advantage.

[00:06:32] So while vendors aren't often, you know, super willing to bend over backwards and support that, it is something as we work through APIs and as we partner with vendors, you're more able to get to where we think we have a really compelling offering above and beyond just that console.

[00:06:49] And the reality is it's also, this is very core to who Auvik is in network management and network monitoring.

[00:06:56] The value we bring is when you have, you know, Cisco and you have Fortinet and you have Juniper and you have all this present within your networks, you, they obviously all have their own management tools.

[00:07:05] But having a single, you know, pane of glass where you can see that all is valuable, SaaS management is the exact same thing.

[00:07:11] Okay. How much is AI going to be a factor here? Because if I'm, you know, whiteboarding a simple solution, like we're in a scenario now where there are generative AI can read the documentation, can create integration code and do it where integration used to be very difficult.

[00:07:26] That's right.

[00:07:26] It has the potential to be significantly easier. How much are you seeing that in now as a, as a changer or is this something that is coming?

[00:07:35] Yeah, we're seeing it now as a changer, but a lot of what we are seeing now, you know, it needs to be curated. And I think everyone's familiar with the hallucination phenomenon.

[00:07:42] And, you know, it's one thing to say, you know, our internal development team will leverage, you know, co-pilots and other AI tools, whether in the development process or the QA process, but we're doing that with very tight controls.

[00:07:55] Okay.

[00:07:55] Right. Because we have to ensure there's not hallucination. It's an entirely different thing to, you know, for example, if you see a, an issue in a particular model of switch to use Gen AI to generate a script that the customer might run, that has, that has big implications, right?

[00:08:10] Right. And if that, if that script contains hallucinations or, or, you know, creates problems, you know, that's something that we view ourselves as being accountable for. And so that's where we're very cautious.

[00:08:19] Got it.

[00:08:20] And we want to ensure that we're not, you know, doing anything that could create, you know, issues at our customers. You know, Gen AI is, you know, it's the shiny new thing, but that comes with risks as well as opportunities. And so we want to make sure that we're doing right by our customers.

[00:08:35] So what's kind of the governance framework you're thinking about for that? Like, how are you, how are you making decisions around that?

[00:08:40] It's, it's right now it's on a case by case basis. You know, as we evaluate individual tools. The other thing has been just the explosion of, you know, Gen AI platforms and Gen AI tools, you know, perplexity, open AI, Microsoft, you know, the list goes on and on and gets bigger every day.

[00:08:55] So we're really taking an evaluative approach. You know, what we feel like quite honestly is things are moving so fast and developing so fast that being thoughtful and patient will put us in position to then act very quickly when it's clear, you know, there's the right answer.

[00:09:13] And again, because we feel like there's just too, we create too much risk for our partners if we were to dive into this without, you know, probability.

[00:09:20] Okay. Again, you've mentioned the name by twice. I'm going to get a little sense of how, what are you doing with Microsoft in terms of how do you vision, view them as both partner and competition?

[00:09:30] Like, where are the parts of the relationship that are the ones that are working the best for you?

[00:09:34] Yeah, no, we definitely, we definitely view, I would say Microsoft no different than any other, you know, software vendor where we view them all as, as partners and folks that we want our SaaS management platform to work very effectively with.

[00:09:45] Okay.

[00:09:46] And at the end of the day, especially Microsoft is, has such deep and strong relationships within the MSP community that, that, you know, by transitive properties makes them, you know, very deep in a special partnership with us.

[00:10:00] Right.

[00:10:00] And so that's, you know, we, we, you know, work very closely and very well with that.

[00:10:04] Well, I'm going to then ask this sort of follow up, like in particular, you know, if I'm, again, if I'm playing the whiteboard a little bit, you know, all of it in networking plus SaaS management.

[00:10:14] Well, if I put Intune right next to it, I know I have, I kind of solved all the problems here, right?

[00:10:20] Yeah.

[00:10:20] Like, and so I wanted to get a sense of like how much you think of it in terms of, of building out the platform in that direction.

[00:10:27] Uh, you know, it's, I would say we are still, uh, you know, kind of somewhat early days in how we craft that.

[00:10:34] I mean, obviously we play nice with Intune and if you choose, choose Intune to deploy Auvix SaaS management to your, you know, within your customer base, that's, that's a seamless process that works very well.

[00:10:42] Um, and so we play very nicely with Intune.

[00:10:45] Um, you know, we haven't contemplated deeper kind of go to market opportunities there, but that's something we're obviously always open to.

[00:10:51] Well, so you brought up go to market.

[00:10:52] That was one of the questions I wanted to ask you about.

[00:10:54] How are you thinking about the dynamic that we're seeing in the MSP space where kind of on one end of this, we have, we have very much tight integrated single platform that is being owned, that is being driven in, in one methodology.

[00:11:06] That's right.

[00:11:06] We, we still have some players that are focused very much on kind of a classic, we will integrate philosophy.

[00:11:12] Yes.

[00:11:12] Right. And we've got players and we're at connect wise, so I don't think I would, would be speaking out of a term.

[00:11:16] But in a way they're kind of walk the line of both a little bit.

[00:11:19] They're trying to do the platform play as well as at the same time talking about the integration play.

[00:11:24] Again, not asking you to comment on a company, but giving, I'd like to get your sense of those strategies.

[00:11:29] Yes.

[00:11:29] And what you think is, is sort of the direction to go.

[00:11:32] Yes.

[00:11:33] I think, you know, within software it's the, the tail as old as time is the competition between vendor consolidation on one hand and best of breed on the other.

[00:11:44] Right.

[00:11:44] And I think we, we constantly see these waves go through the industry where people get very, very focused and interested in tool consolidation.

[00:11:51] Mm-hmm .

[00:11:51] And that becomes all the rage.

[00:11:53] And then when you realize, okay, I've consolidated tools, but now I have a very, very mediocre solution for X, I need a best degree for X.

[00:12:01] And so, you know, that's where we, you know, quite honestly feel like we're in a very privileged position because of our depth within network monitoring, network management.

[00:12:11] You know, the strength just we have within the tool and the platform, you know, the, the advantages we have in things like network mapping that are very hard to, to replicate where, you know, we can partner very deeply with like a connect wise, which we, which we have.

[00:12:25] And we're, you know, the, the, the, the ASIO, you know, network monitoring functionality is powered by Auvik.

[00:12:31] And we feel, you know, great about that partnership and what we've done there, you know, but at the same time for partners that want, you know, the depth of a best of breed, you know, they're obviously able to work with us directly as well.

[00:12:41] And so we, we're continuing to straddle that line and we're very open in terms of, of partnering across the board, you know, where, you know, where we can deliver partners about a solution, whether that's, you know, via API and in, in that route or whether that's to standalone with Auvik.

[00:12:56] Gotcha. So, I mean, I don't want to mischaracterize, but I want to make sure I understand what you're talking about.

[00:13:00] You're viewing it a little bit as there's a bit of a fad to what you, we kind of move back and forth.

[00:13:05] I think so.

[00:13:05] Hedge your bet a little bit and make sure that you can play either way. Is that a fair way to carry?

[00:13:08] That's a fair way. That's a fair way.

[00:13:09] And I think one of the things that's core to Auvik and has been from the beginning, it's, it's one of the things that brought me to the company is we really put our partners first and we want to make it easy for our partners.

[00:13:19] And one of the things I love about our relationship with ConnectWise as an example is that they share the same philosophy.

[00:13:24] And so we'll have times where, you know, the best thing for the partner is for them to work with Auvik directly and ConnectWise is great with that.

[00:13:31] Sometimes the best thing is to have them on ASIO and we're great with that.

[00:13:35] And, you know, we can go either way. We can be successful either way.

[00:13:38] What matters to us is that the partner gets the solution that they need.

[00:13:41] Okay.

[00:13:42] And that's, that's always where we prioritize what we put first.

[00:13:44] And so we're trying to go to market in as many different ways as we can so that we're meeting the partner with where they are.

[00:13:50] We, we launched a PAX 8 on the PAX 8 marketplace recently in the last several months.

[00:13:54] Same exact concept.

[00:13:56] We have many of our partners who came best and said, we'd love if you are on PAX 8.

[00:14:00] Now we are.

[00:14:00] Okay.

[00:14:00] Right.

[00:14:01] And if that's the best way for you to get access to Auvik, then we want to meet you where you are.

[00:14:05] Gotcha.

[00:14:06] So the other thing I've been asking like a little bit of sense is I want to get a sense of the way you've put together your organization.

[00:14:11] You're leading the organization.

[00:14:12] That's right.

[00:14:12] Give me a little bit of a sense of how it's all put together to, to, to, so I can get a sense of like how you're getting information and insights in your organization.

[00:14:19] Yeah.

[00:14:19] So, so I, I joined Auvik actually about the last six months and to run as president, I run all of go to market.

[00:14:27] So I report to our CEO, I run go to market for the first time.

[00:14:30] That meant that we put marketing sales and customer success all under one umbrella.

[00:14:35] Okay.

[00:14:35] And so from the time that we, someone sees one of our memes on Reddit, right, all the way to when we close the deal, onboard them and all the way through renewal and hopefully expansion, you know, I, I have kind of complete ownership under, under one, you know, one roof for that.

[00:14:50] And so what that means is we're trying to, we're making huge strides to set customers up for success from the beginning.

[00:14:57] Uh, one of the things that we found as we pulled the organization together is that we were not as good as we needed to be getting from a closed one deal to an onboarding kickoff call.

[00:15:07] Okay.

[00:15:08] And so that meant that our, you know, everyone's super excited when we, you know, we close the deal, the customer's excited because they've, you know, bought a new, a new tool.

[00:15:16] They're excited to use it.

[00:15:17] We're excited, um, you know, to, to get the signature.

[00:15:20] Um, but then it was taking us, you know, perhaps a month to get a really good onboarding experience where we've already cut that time in half just in the last six months.

[00:15:28] We want to cut it further.

[00:15:29] We want, you know, at least another third, because the idea is the faster you're seeing value, uh, the faster that you're getting onboarded.

[00:15:36] And what we find is if we really lean in and proactively engage, folks are getting avic configured according to best practice right out of the gate,

[00:15:44] which eliminates so many issues down the road.

[00:15:47] Right.

[00:15:47] Um, and so we're really trying to provide that great experience start to finish and a consistent experience in where, you know, what we tell you is, is actually what you're going to receive

[00:15:57] and in the way in which you, you hope to receive it as a partner.

[00:16:00] And we're finding, we're getting just tremendous feedback from our partners on that front.

[00:16:03] Gotcha.

[00:16:03] So as you're, you're looking at next year and 25, like what's the one thing you're keeping an eye on?

[00:16:08] That's like a key indicator or a trend or something that you've said, I want to keep an eye on that.

[00:16:14] Yeah.

[00:16:14] So we actually, uh, so we actually closed our most recent fiscal quarter closed at the end of October.

[00:16:19] Uh, it was actually our best quarter for inbound demand, uh, in the company's history.

[00:16:23] And which is, which is obviously great.

[00:16:25] Right.

[00:16:25] Um, and I think a lot of that reflects, you know, the last couple of years has been, uh, difficult for a lot of MSPs.

[00:16:31] Growth has slowed, uh, you know, COVID, peak COVID years were great years, right?

[00:16:36] There was a lot of demand for software, a lot of demand for IT services.

[00:16:39] Um, you know, we had a bit of a, of a, um, downturn out of that.

[00:16:42] I think things are turning around now.

[00:16:44] Okay.

[00:16:44] I think our most recent quarterly results reflect that.

[00:16:46] And so as we look into the coming year, that's what we're really excited about that.

[00:16:50] There's just, you know, there's, there's a ton of excitement and optimism within the MSP space.

[00:16:54] Um, MSPs are growing again.

[00:16:56] They're seeing a strong return to growth.

[00:16:58] I'm hearing over and over again, folks tell me, oh yeah, like we're, we're back to 30%,

[00:17:02] we're back to 30% plus growth.

[00:17:04] Um, we feel great about that.

[00:17:05] And we're here to support MSPs, not just in, uh, you know, in, in our traditional network market,

[00:17:12] we're not in the monitoring space, but how do they add, you know, new offerings around SAS management?

[00:17:16] Uh, we have other new offerings in the work.

[00:17:18] For example, we're working on what we call endpoint network monitoring, which is the idea of taking

[00:17:22] network monitoring all the way down to the endpoint level.

[00:17:25] So that again, when MSPs get a call, uh, you know, one of the, the CFO at one of their clients is,

[00:17:30] is on the road, he's at a coffee shop and he can't access one of his tools.

[00:17:34] That's, you know, if the endpoints patched, if the endpoints up to date, it's really hard today for the MSP to troubleshoot that.

[00:17:39] Mm-hmm . . . But with what we've rolled out with endpoint network monitoring,

[00:17:42] now we can understand that much better.

[00:17:44] You know, including understanding perhaps the local wifi performance of the Starbucks that he's sitting in.

[00:17:49] Right.

[00:17:49] And just give MSPs more tools to be more proactive and to be able to resolve issues faster.

[00:17:54] Well, Mark, there's been insightful.

[00:17:55] I really appreciate you spending some time with me.

[00:17:57] Yeah, this is great.

[00:17:57] Thank you so much.

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