James Allen of Pia

[00:00:01] Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another edition of the MSP Initiative, MSP Live podcast.

[00:00:11] Today is October 22nd, 2024. And we are in the middle of it, ladies and gents. A lot of stuff going on.

[00:00:20] And so we're going to get some housekeeping done out of the way and then we'll get on to the good stuff.

[00:00:24] So here is the housekeeping, MSP Initiative dot com.

[00:00:29] Like this session, for example, is being recorded. We will park that under the sessions tab of MSP Initiative on our YouTube page, on our podcatcher and on this sessions page.

[00:00:38] Feel free to go back, like, subscribe, forward, share. You know what to do. It's all there for you.

[00:00:44] Thank you for everybody that participated in MSP Community Minds in Nashville earlier this year in Denver just a few weeks ago.

[00:00:50] We are planning many of these, many of these, at least one or two of these next year. Check out the format. It was pretty cool setup.

[00:00:57] Panels in the morning, workshops in the afternoon, all MSPs and industry experts.

[00:01:03] We like this educational format. We think, you know, there's a, you know, a new path forward here.

[00:01:08] So stay tuned while we plan more of these.

[00:01:10] Then, and this is probably what we're better known for, the MSP Community Block Parties.

[00:01:18] There are three left.

[00:01:19] We finished PAX 8 Beyond in Germany, so we can probably cross that one off the list.

[00:01:24] But we have DadoCon in Miami, I believe, next week.

[00:01:29] So if you're headed to DadoCon on October 29th, which is the second night of DadoCon,

[00:01:34] on site at Fountain Blue, in the lobby, you will find Live Nightclub,

[00:01:39] which apparently is one of the more popular places to go on South Beach.

[00:01:44] So you don't even have to get a taxi, an Uber, or walk out of the front door of the conference venue.

[00:01:50] So you're going to go into the lobby, hit Live Nightclub.

[00:01:52] We will be there at 930 on October 29th till close.

[00:01:56] You'll see there's two different registration links here.

[00:01:58] As an MSP or anyone other than an MSP, register ahead of time.

[00:02:02] And we will enjoy the night on site at Live.

[00:02:05] And then two weeks later, on November 6th, on the first night of IT Nation in Orlando,

[00:02:13] we will be at Icon Park with the big Ferris wheel in the middle of International Drive.

[00:02:19] And, you know, we usually bring a pretty radio recognizable performer this year.

[00:02:25] That performer is Flo Rida.

[00:02:27] So private concert for the MSP community, as well as karaoke and beverages, food, whiskey, cigars,

[00:02:35] and all sorts of other cool entertainment there for you.

[00:02:38] So we're expecting over 2,000 people at this event.

[00:02:41] Definitely register ahead of time.

[00:02:43] You will see on this page, same deal.

[00:02:45] MSPs and anyone other than MSPs, register ahead of time.

[00:02:48] Save yourself and your thumbs sometime at the door.

[00:02:52] Then we turn around.

[00:02:53] And because people in my company love to be on airplanes, apparently, we are going to DattoCon in Sydney.

[00:03:01] So on November 12th, the second night of DattoCon, we will be going to a place right down the street.

[00:03:09] Literally make a right and you can't miss it.

[00:03:12] Straight ahead.

[00:03:13] No bus, no transportation needed.

[00:03:15] Literally just use your feet.

[00:03:16] And at 8.30 p.m., we'll be going to a place called Bungalow 8 in Darling Harbor for DattoCon in Sydney.

[00:03:23] So all of this is there.

[00:03:24] Register ahead of time.

[00:03:26] Please do yourself and do us a favor.

[00:03:29] Get in there and just register.

[00:03:31] Get your QR code.

[00:03:32] Makes it all the more simpler once you're on site at one of these parties.

[00:03:36] You will find this under community blockparties, mspinitiative.com.

[00:03:39] Go check it out.

[00:03:40] There's some community offers.

[00:03:41] If you find a deal that's worthwhile, take advantage of it on the website.

[00:03:44] And then the industry calendar, which takes you to the end of this year.

[00:03:47] And then we'll load up next year.

[00:03:49] I hear there's closer to 500 events next year.

[00:03:51] So if you really don't want to be working, we'll give you places to go apparently in the industry calendar.

[00:03:57] And that is all of the housekeeping.

[00:04:02] So mspinitiative.com.

[00:04:03] If you know how to spell initiative, Google it.

[00:04:05] It'll spell check it for you.

[00:04:07] All right.

[00:04:07] So without further ado, we bring on special guests on today's show.

[00:04:12] James Allen from PIA.

[00:04:15] You can find them at pia.ai.

[00:04:18] How are you doing today, James?

[00:04:20] Doing great, George.

[00:04:21] Yeah.

[00:04:22] Pleasure to be here.

[00:04:23] No, thanks for jumping on.

[00:04:25] Are you, you're down under, yes?

[00:04:27] Not anymore.

[00:04:28] So I moved over to the States a couple of years ago.

[00:04:31] So I'm based in Tampa, Florida.

[00:04:34] Oh, are you on dry land in Tampa, Florida?

[00:04:38] Or are you okay?

[00:04:40] Yeah, fortunately we're okay.

[00:04:42] We've got power and the internet back on here.

[00:04:44] So starting to get back to business as usual.

[00:04:47] That's good.

[00:04:48] I'm glad to hear that.

[00:04:48] And for everybody else that didn't have as much luck, we hope that you're doing okay.

[00:04:53] And if you need help, you know, the greater community is here.

[00:04:56] Don't hesitate to raise your hand.

[00:04:58] We don't want to see people out on the street for sure.

[00:05:02] Yeah, it's a strong community down here.

[00:05:04] I love how everyone's pulling together.

[00:05:07] It's great.

[00:05:07] Yeah.

[00:05:08] And I know, I definitely, you know, there was two hurricanes like within 30 days of each

[00:05:12] other.

[00:05:12] And I was down for the Tampa Eagles game at Raymond James out in our favor, but that's

[00:05:20] okay.

[00:05:20] It was still a nice afternoon.

[00:05:22] But I was hearing on the first hurricane people got wiped out.

[00:05:26] So two hurricanes in 30 days is not ideal for sure, but hopefully everybody's doing okay.

[00:05:32] And I'm hearing, uh, I don't know what you're hearing James, but I'm hearing that at least

[00:05:37] Orlando and Miami for these two upcoming conferences are dry.

[00:05:42] So they're good to go.

[00:05:43] That's good.

[00:05:44] That's good.

[00:05:45] So James, I don't, you know, this whole AI thing, right?

[00:05:50] I mean, the marketers have gotten their hands on it for sure.

[00:05:52] And I feel like just like cyber was like 18 months ago, you just put the word cyber in

[00:05:58] front of anything.

[00:05:59] And all of a sudden, you know, the marketing, you know, takes a hold.

[00:06:02] Um, this AI thing is, I'm going to call it wild, wild West.

[00:06:08] Um, it's all over the map.

[00:06:10] A lot of people are saying a lot of things, but like nobody knows what's actually going

[00:06:13] on.

[00:06:14] Uh, that's the cool part about technology, by the way, right?

[00:06:17] It comes fast, but what does it actually do?

[00:06:21] So I know everybody's using it in a different way.

[00:06:25] And for people who have not heard of Pia, uh, James, and what your special brand of AI

[00:06:32] actually does, tell us what does it do?

[00:06:38] Yeah.

[00:06:39] Okay.

[00:06:39] You're, you're, you're a hundred percent right, George.

[00:06:41] So it definitely the buzzword out there and, and, um, and people are jumping on it.

[00:06:47] Um, but you're right.

[00:06:49] It's, it's technology at the end of the day.

[00:06:50] And I think we're all in the tech space.

[00:06:52] We'll get excited about technology and it can be transformational, um, to how we do

[00:06:57] our, do our business, do our business going forward.

[00:07:00] So, you know, we've, what, what, what we've done and what we're doing, I guess, how we're,

[00:07:06] how we're solving sort of problems with AI is, um, we built our own model, um, a fair few

[00:07:11] years ago.

[00:07:12] And it all spawned out of, um, quite a large MSP in, in APAC, virtual IT group.

[00:07:18] And, you know, our now CTO back then, one of the head developers at the, at the practice

[00:07:25] was playing around with AI before it was cool.

[00:07:28] He says, so a few years before chat GPT came in the market, he was building, um, a small

[00:07:34] language model, um, basically just to read the tickets at the, at the practice.

[00:07:38] So tuning up machine learning, using natural language processing, and then AI to go and

[00:07:43] trigger off, off what, what it's read in the, in the tickets.

[00:07:47] I just want to pause you for a second.

[00:07:49] Did you hear those two phrases guys?

[00:07:50] Before the words AI got glued together, the two letters, you heard natural language processing

[00:07:58] and machine learning, right?

[00:08:00] So like this AI thing didn't just come out of the movies, just magic appeared.

[00:08:04] This was like a, an evolutionary, you know, kind of steps progression to get to where we're

[00:08:10] at.

[00:08:10] So you go, you go search those two things, natural language processing and machine learning.

[00:08:15] I think you'll find a lot more history before we get to the words AI.

[00:08:18] Sorry, James, go.

[00:08:19] No, you're right.

[00:08:21] So it's the blanket, um, term that covers so many different elements, um, which what we

[00:08:26] know is to be AI.

[00:08:28] Um, so, so our specific brand, if you want to call it a brand of AI, it's really just purpose

[00:08:35] built for MSP help desk, um, to read those tickets, understand what's going on in the tickets

[00:08:40] and then progress those tickets throughout the life cycle of its completion.

[00:08:48] So we knew at our MSP, um, you know, if we can make that help desk more efficient, the

[00:08:53] impact that's going to happen in our business is going to be, you know, substantial.

[00:09:00] Um, and, and, and, and it was, so we went, we're not about solving that problem around how

[00:09:04] do we make that help desk more efficient?

[00:09:06] Um, and AI and automation was where we, where we focused and, and it's a problem that we're

[00:09:12] still trying to solve for, um, because we know there's a lot of work that can be done there

[00:09:16] and a lot of impact that we can add, um, on our, on our system.

[00:09:20] So, so for the people who have been in this MSP sandbox, that's what I like to call it.

[00:09:28] Um, can you differentiate the difference between what you're doing and RPA robotic process automation,

[00:09:38] or is it the same thing?

[00:09:39] I don't know.

[00:09:39] You tell me.

[00:09:40] Yeah, it's a great question.

[00:09:42] Uh, and one that comes up quite often.

[00:09:45] So look, there's absolutely an element of RPA in, in what we do.

[00:09:51] Um, I guess how we differentiate is you've really got to understand what's happening with,

[00:09:57] with an RPA and what that means.

[00:09:59] If you're going to be plugging that into any business, quite frankly, recently MSPs are starting

[00:10:04] to embrace that, which is, which is great.

[00:10:05] Obviously I get excited about anything to do with automation, but with RPA,

[00:10:10] um, it's a platform, you know, UI path's been around for, for a number of years,

[00:10:14] owning that space.

[00:10:15] One of the biggest, obviously there's automate anywhere in the MSP land.

[00:10:19] We've got roost.

[00:10:20] Um, but the, the, I guess the differentiator, the big obvious one is with an RPA,

[00:10:25] you need someone to own it, run it, build it, manage version, maintain all the automations

[00:10:31] that you put together.

[00:10:33] Um, and that's where we saw, you know, coming from an MSP, we knew most MSPs don't have

[00:10:39] those resources on staff, nor do they want to be software developers.

[00:10:44] They've got a focus, um, of delivering great service to their clients.

[00:10:48] Now we're going to ask them to become managers of developers and software developers and start

[00:10:54] focusing over there that can pull an MSP in all different directions.

[00:10:57] So we need, we knew our solution needed to be simple, you know, simple to implement,

[00:11:02] simple to get ROI, simple to get runs on the board and have impact.

[00:11:06] Um, but also have, like I said, there is an element of RPA to the platform where you can

[00:11:12] go and build and customize and further extend the platform.

[00:11:16] But at a really high level, that's a big difference is we're building it for you out of the box

[00:11:21] and you're getting a lot of the work that we've already done and built out for our,

[00:11:25] for our MSP and partners.

[00:11:26] As you're getting off the shelf.

[00:11:29] Okay.

[00:11:29] That's really important because, and I've said this and I'm going to keep saying it because

[00:11:33] I was the guy who was marketed to in this way.

[00:11:36] And I swiped the credit card and 10 years later, I asked myself, what did I actually get?

[00:11:41] The marketing around RMM or, you know, in the 2010, 11, 12, 13, I mean, Hey, you know,

[00:11:48] we pre-built all this stuff for you.

[00:11:50] You don't need to be a programmer.

[00:11:52] Um, you know, all the scripts and the software packages are there.

[00:11:56] Um, you know, you just have to use the tool.

[00:11:59] I don't think that actually ended up being true.

[00:12:01] I ended up having to spend way more time.

[00:12:04] And when I realized that my time wasn't getting me anywhere, I had to use an outside consultant.

[00:12:09] And then when it was all said and done, it was a way bigger time investment for the

[00:12:14] return that I got in my opinion.

[00:12:15] And, um, at that point, my money was already spent.

[00:12:19] Right.

[00:12:20] So, so when somebody comes to you, what are the use cases that you have already pre-packaged?

[00:12:29] Like, can you give us an example of what an MSP is experiencing their regular day where

[00:12:33] you come in and change the game?

[00:12:36] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:12:38] And you're a hundred percent right, George.

[00:12:40] So, you know, the other, the other risk factor that you've got with that scenario is if, if

[00:12:45] someone who owns that, that RMM in your example there, if they move on from the business or

[00:12:50] got hit by a bus yesterday, you mean, you know, we're up, up the creek again, again, it's,

[00:12:55] we're cognizant of that.

[00:12:56] And we knew like it had to be simple, had to be something that you could just take.

[00:13:00] And without a coder or an automation engineer or a developer, get that use out of it.

[00:13:04] Oh, and to that point, I'm going to just expand for a second.

[00:13:07] Cause it literally just hit my head.

[00:13:08] Then there was, oh, well we're going to create a place where you can, you know, marketplace,

[00:13:14] right?

[00:13:14] Like if one MSP spent the time, they have the guy who can, or girl who built all the script

[00:13:19] or the package or the executable or whatever, they can just share that to the marketplace.

[00:13:24] And then somebody else can just download that.

[00:13:26] And like, that never happened, right?

[00:13:28] That was a pipe dream.

[00:13:29] And I thought the idea was great.

[00:13:31] Cause we see this crowdsourcing thing happen in a lot of different industries.

[00:13:35] In this case, it never really happened.

[00:13:38] Yeah.

[00:13:38] Well, one of the challenges, um, around that is you can imagine if you're, if you're building

[00:13:44] out code and automation, uh, workflow, and then you're sharing it on a marketplace, you've

[00:13:49] now got to rely on the person that built it to keep it up to date, or you've got to now

[00:13:53] keep it up to date and version and maintain and life cycle managed that script over, over

[00:13:58] the course of time.

[00:13:59] So, okay, hold on.

[00:14:00] So instead of that, we connected chat CPT to the RMM and we have the AI engine

[00:14:07] create the script for us.

[00:14:08] That's safe.

[00:14:09] I'm sorry.

[00:14:10] Did I, I don't think that's the answer though.

[00:14:13] No, I, I don't think that's the answer either.

[00:14:15] I think a lot of MSPs get freaked out about that as much as they should, because, you know,

[00:14:20] if you're going to be passing, you know, sensitive data out into the, you know, AI,

[00:14:24] open AI, that's a pretty significant.

[00:14:26] But like, you know, like I appreciate that the system is intelligent enough to try and

[00:14:31] create the script for me, but could you imagine a world where the level one guy goes to this

[00:14:36] plugin says, build me a script to install a printer.

[00:14:39] And then actually didn't realize like what's in there.

[00:14:42] They just press go.

[00:14:43] And who knows what happened after that?

[00:14:45] I mean, that, that doesn't end well in a lot of scenarios.

[00:14:49] Yeah.

[00:14:51] Yeah.

[00:14:51] It's funny.

[00:14:52] Our CTR, he's actually flying over for one of the events in a few weeks in Orlando, but

[00:14:59] actually you're going to be at it as well.

[00:15:01] And he'll be giving a speech there around just that.

[00:15:05] So, you know, he gave 50,000 tickets to chat GPT to see what, what, what it would return.

[00:15:12] And he talks about the results and just how varied and inaccurate it was, because you're

[00:15:19] going to think about these large language models.

[00:15:23] They're exactly that.

[00:15:24] They're, they're huge.

[00:15:26] In chat GPT's example, it's a massive large language model.

[00:15:31] So what we've built at PIA is a small language model.

[00:15:33] It's specifically built and trained up, purposely built for those MSP tickets.

[00:15:38] We've manually trained it.

[00:15:39] It's proprietary built and it's, and it's done for that purpose in mind to, to read the

[00:15:45] tickets and advance those tickets with the technology, with the AI.

[00:15:48] Okay.

[00:15:49] So you mentioned use cases.

[00:15:51] So yeah, look, there's, so what we've got, there's a couple of components to the platform.

[00:15:56] There's obviously the AI, the triage, the dispatching, but if we're talking about automations

[00:16:01] or on that topic there, we've built out, you know, there's over 60 different types of

[00:16:06] tickets that you can imagine are coming into the help desk that we've automated to either

[00:16:11] completely close it out or do a good, a good swipe of the ticket for the technician.

[00:16:17] And we've also built it out across multiple environments.

[00:16:20] 60 is a lot, but like, give me the top, give me the top three from your opinion.

[00:16:25] Like that password reset, is that a printer?

[00:16:30] I don't know.

[00:16:31] You tell me.

[00:16:31] Yeah.

[00:16:32] Printer troubleshooting, printer installs.

[00:16:34] The new user onboarding is a great use case.

[00:16:37] Terminate users.

[00:16:39] There's a list on our website.

[00:16:40] We've got it all there and it's built up across multiple client environments that you could,

[00:16:44] you know, would support in our MSP.

[00:16:46] So on-premise, cloud, hybrid, et cetera.

[00:16:49] So, but yeah, the new user onboarding is a great example where we've automated a lot of

[00:16:54] that process.

[00:16:55] And I guess that, you know, I hear when I'm talking to partners at events and in conversation,

[00:17:05] I'm hearing lots of different impacts that that's happening.

[00:17:10] You know, I was talking to John from CMIT, one of the partners that we're supporting out

[00:17:15] there last week.

[00:17:17] And they had a couple of resources that would check over their new user onboardings every

[00:17:23] time a ticket would come in.

[00:17:25] Because it's something that you don't want to mess up as an MSP.

[00:17:28] We know how vital that is to get right.

[00:17:30] If you mess it up, it can be an issue.

[00:17:33] Now, that was taking a couple of resources, two and a half hours.

[00:17:37] Now, after they've put in PA, that's brought it down to one resource and about half an hour's

[00:17:42] worth of time.

[00:17:43] So, freeze up a significant amount of time, which then obviously has an MSP.

[00:17:48] There's a lot of work that you can get done in terms of projects, SPAC logs, et cetera.

[00:17:54] But that's one use case there.

[00:17:57] So, I mean, I think I saw a slide somewhere.

[00:18:03] There's 400,000 companies worldwide that could be categorized in MSP.

[00:18:07] Okay.

[00:18:08] That's a lot of MSPs.

[00:18:10] Although we're all buying a lot of the same technology, I got to think that it's not that

[00:18:16] cookie cutter, right?

[00:18:17] Meaning like from MSP to MSP to MSP, the implementation of a new user or the offboarding of an existing

[00:18:24] user, just different products, different tools, different technologies.

[00:18:28] How does that, like, are you helping them package that?

[00:18:32] Or do they just pick from a list?

[00:18:33] Or how does that get put together?

[00:18:36] Yeah, that's a great question, George.

[00:18:38] So, and not only are MSPs different, but the MSP clients are very different.

[00:18:44] So, we've had to account for that and accommodate that.

[00:18:47] So, you know, that example that you're talking about, that's been in production for over four

[00:18:53] years and it continuously gets tweaked and changed and reworked and versioned.

[00:19:00] Quite frankly, that's what we're doing.

[00:19:01] We're constantly updating and upgrading it to cater for anything that comes along.

[00:19:05] But out of that, there's a lot of functionality, a lot of customization that you can do out

[00:19:10] of the box.

[00:19:10] And then if there's things that are specific to a certain, you know, part of that the MSP

[00:19:15] has, that's where they can start to bolt things onto ours.

[00:19:18] And you talked about RPA before, you know, building out some different automations custom to those

[00:19:25] clients with applications that are custom to those clients.

[00:19:28] That's where they can start to plug it into our automations and then extend it out and

[00:19:31] augment the two.

[00:19:33] Okay.

[00:19:34] All right.

[00:19:35] So, we heard 60 use cases that are on the website that MSPs that turn into tickets because

[00:19:41] everything should be a ticket, right?

[00:19:42] In order for you to track it and go for it, et cetera.

[00:19:44] So, we have 60 scenarios that you have kind of worked through and packaged.

[00:19:50] All right.

[00:19:50] Cool.

[00:19:51] Onboarding, offboarding are at the top of that list.

[00:19:53] Got it.

[00:19:55] What else?

[00:19:58] Yes.

[00:19:58] So, there's a couple of different categories that we look after.

[00:20:01] And we've started, we started out with the level one, level two type of tickets.

[00:20:06] Because if you talk to, you know, any MSP out there, that's where the big pain points are,

[00:20:12] right?

[00:20:12] And we've used that Pareto principle.

[00:20:15] So, what are, you know, 20% of the tickets giving us 80% of the headache.

[00:20:19] That's where we've started.

[00:20:20] And we're on a mission to keep going, you know.

[00:20:22] At the moment, when we look at our MSP partners,

[00:20:26] on average, we're doing between, we're automating between 20 and 40% of the service requests

[00:20:32] that are coming through.

[00:20:34] We know that that's not enough.

[00:20:35] We want to keep going.

[00:20:36] That's why I said we're on a mission like an inch wide, mile deep on that help desk to

[00:20:40] make it more efficient.

[00:20:41] So, if we can get that to 50, 60, 80% of the tickets coming in, that impact on, in terms

[00:20:47] of time savings that we give back to MSP is significant.

[00:20:52] One of the things that I used to love to measure was our endpoint per tech ratio as an MSP.

[00:20:58] Because it gives us, like, it's a formula.

[00:21:01] It's pretty, you know, tried and tested.

[00:21:03] That can give us the scalability and profitability in our business.

[00:21:07] And you talked about, you know, being in the industry for a while and the journey that we've

[00:21:11] all been on as MSPs.

[00:21:13] You know, back to the early 2000s when the RMM came out, that was a significant impact

[00:21:18] to our businesses.

[00:21:19] We went from, you know, technicians being able to manage like 100 endpoints per tech.

[00:21:25] And then we pretty much doubled it.

[00:21:27] We went up to, you know, being able to support 200.

[00:21:31] I mean, the people who are, I hate to say this, right?

[00:21:36] Like, kind of DevOps, kind of backed MSPs.

[00:21:41] You know, there have been use cases where they've been able to do way more because they

[00:21:46] leverage the tools of the day, right?

[00:21:49] Now, I'm going back 10 years.

[00:21:50] But I imagine a two or three person MSP covering, you know, 800, 900, 1,000 endpoints, 500, you

[00:21:58] know, endpoints per person.

[00:21:59] I mean, now we're getting into economies of scale, which to be totally frank, I mean, you've

[00:22:04] been around, I've been around.

[00:22:06] I don't see that economies of scale often.

[00:22:08] I see it the other way that, you know.

[00:22:10] Edge cases, for sure.

[00:22:12] Like if you've got, you know, your own hosting data center or certain stack that you only

[00:22:16] support, absolutely there's edge cases and you can create those efficiencies.

[00:22:20] But for the most part, we're talking to, you know, they're sitting anywhere between 160

[00:22:26] to 250 endpoints per tech as a ratio today.

[00:22:30] So it's that needle that we're trying to move.

[00:22:32] And we've got partners, you know, over 400 endpoints per tech and making that transition

[00:22:37] in a relatively quick period of time.

[00:22:41] Not by reducing headcount, like, you know, going out there.

[00:22:44] We're not saying we want you to carve out your headcount at all.

[00:22:47] I'm telling people go and grow the business, but stop hiring in that linear fashion that

[00:22:52] we've traditionally, you know, every two to 300 endpoints, I need to put another body on

[00:22:56] the desk, another body on the desk.

[00:22:58] Stop.

[00:22:58] It's a profitability problem.

[00:23:00] So, I mean, in the end, that's what it, you know, we're hopefully everybody here who's

[00:23:04] watching this is a business to make money.

[00:23:06] But if not, maybe we're doing the wrong line of business.

[00:23:09] But bottom line is, I look at it the other way around, right?

[00:23:14] Like, and maybe this is a question for you.

[00:23:16] What's the average partner headcount that you see adopting this technology successfully?

[00:23:21] But like, if I'm a smaller MSP, probably can't afford to add headcount, right?

[00:23:27] And so the question is, can we use this type of technology to delay the hiring of additional

[00:23:34] people in order to number one, scale differently?

[00:23:37] Number two, become profitable faster, you know, where, you know, if it's to your point,

[00:23:43] you know, if I have to keep on hiring headcount and I can't get past the ratioing, I mean,

[00:23:48] at this point, I'm just, you know, not actually making money, right?

[00:23:51] I'm just getting bad.

[00:23:54] Your EBITDA is flatlining.

[00:23:55] So as your revenue top line goes up, your expenses are tracking in the same linear fashion.

[00:24:00] So EBITDA just flatlines to your point, right?

[00:24:03] You're not becoming more profitable.

[00:24:04] And that's exactly what we're trying to solve for.

[00:24:07] You know, I want a business person, I want businesses to be profitable and be successful.

[00:24:13] So yeah, absolutely.

[00:24:15] That's the conversation that we have with those types of MSPs is don't hire the next

[00:24:20] 200 to 300 endpoints, push it out to 500 or the next 600 endpoints that you bring on board

[00:24:25] because you're going to have, you know, an absorption of the workload with the technology.

[00:24:31] I was over in the UK a couple of weeks ago talking to one of our successful partners over there.

[00:24:37] Now, they're a bigger MSP, over 10,000 endpoints.

[00:24:40] And as nature of the beast, they have natural attrition, right?

[00:24:44] As part of that nature of the beast there.

[00:24:48] And anyone that runs an MSP would know if someone leaves your help desk, the next day you're ringing

[00:24:54] up HR and trying to fill that seat because there's a formula that you've got to support

[00:25:00] these tickets and these clients.

[00:25:02] And it has to be five people on the desk or 10 people, whatever it is.

[00:25:05] If you drop one, you've got to go and fill it, right?

[00:25:08] And the beautiful thing that he's told me in our last catch up over there was he hasn't

[00:25:13] had to backfill anyone for the last six months.

[00:25:16] And they've had, you know, a bit of natural attrition over there.

[00:25:20] So that's another way that we're, you know, having an impact on the larger MSPs.

[00:25:26] But for you in terms of the smaller MSPs growing, absolutely.

[00:25:30] This is a no-brainer.

[00:25:31] So like, can a two, three, four person MSP successfully adopt this and have it work for them?

[00:25:40] Or is this catering to the 10, 15, 20 person MSP?

[00:25:44] Like, where does the sweet spot from your perspective sit?

[00:25:47] Yeah, yeah, that's a fair question.

[00:25:50] And one that we definitely try and have those qualifying conversations with MSPs.

[00:25:56] Because at the end of the day, you know, the massive benefit for something like PIA is the

[00:26:03] ability to close tickets faster, you know?

[00:26:06] So that's a big benefit.

[00:26:08] The consistency is another great benefit because of the workflow consistency.

[00:26:13] So if that's not a problem, if that's not something that you're struggling with as an MSP,

[00:26:17] if you're only getting half a dozen tickets a day, we don't really need to be going out

[00:26:22] and automating those because I'm pretty sure you've got it covered.

[00:26:26] But if you're getting like, you know, 40, 50, 100 tickets a day, you probably need some

[00:26:31] help.

[00:26:31] You need someone to come and have a look and see where we can grab those efficiency.

[00:26:35] Okay, let me pause you for a second.

[00:26:39] You work with a lot of MSPs.

[00:26:41] What do you see as the average number of tickets per tech in a given day?

[00:26:48] Is it 12, 15, 20, 10?

[00:26:52] Like where do you see that number landing?

[00:26:55] Yeah, I love that.

[00:26:57] So that's definitely a metric that I love to measure and measure at our MSP.

[00:27:02] On average, 8 to 10 to 12.

[00:27:05] So say 10, like a sweet spot, definitely there's good ones that'll do 15 or close to 20.

[00:27:11] But on average, it's, you know, 8 to 12 tickets a day per tech.

[00:27:16] And that's another space that we target in terms of our ROI.

[00:27:20] If we can take someone that's doing, you know, 8 or 10, 12 tickets a day and double that output,

[00:27:26] we're having a big impact.

[00:27:28] You know, I've got, you know, I've got partners coming to me with non-technical resources doing a couple dozen tickets a day.

[00:27:35] I have one partner in Australia.

[00:27:38] They've got a dispatcher that does between 40 and 50 tickets a day, non-technical resource.

[00:27:44] Wow.

[00:27:44] So basically the system's intelligent enough to get through the steps without them knowing the subject matter expert kind of part of it in order to go in and do it.

[00:27:52] That's the whole point of it.

[00:27:54] Well, one, we don't want, like to your point, we've got a philosophy that MSPs should be ticket-centric, right?

[00:28:00] Everything should revolve and live around a ticket.

[00:28:02] That's why our core integration is the ticketing system.

[00:28:05] And we don't want our technicians leaving that.

[00:28:08] So we've built our solution in such a way where they stay in the ticketing system all day.

[00:28:14] They don't need to bounce around at 365 or, you know, the distributor to grab licenses.

[00:28:20] P is going to go and do all that work for them.

[00:28:22] So let me throw a curveball at you because I can.

[00:28:27] Absolutely.

[00:28:29] I'm actually at peer groups right now, and I ask this question almost regularly.

[00:28:35] Like percentage of tickets by channel, meaning like are you seeing a lot of your tickets through forum submission, ticket portal, phone calls?

[00:28:46] Are still very high percentage?

[00:28:49] I mean, maybe does your tool take things via chat bot, like text messaging?

[00:28:54] Like if you lay out all the different lanes that people can take inbound requests through, are you seeing the needle shift?

[00:29:03] Or are you like, like right now I hear pretty regularly half of our inbound requests still come in via live call.

[00:29:13] Right.

[00:29:13] Hey, 911.

[00:29:14] I have a problem.

[00:29:15] Solve my problem.

[00:29:16] I'm not texting, you know, the fire department or the police.

[00:29:19] Right.

[00:29:19] Like I need to talk to somebody.

[00:29:20] Okay.

[00:29:21] I don't know.

[00:29:21] Some people do.

[00:29:22] Not me.

[00:29:22] I'm going to call.

[00:29:23] So that's about 40 to 50%.

[00:29:26] A lot of people are still saying.

[00:29:27] And then the balance is all the digital lanes.

[00:29:31] Right.

[00:29:31] Email, portal, chat.

[00:29:34] You know, whatever, whatever mechanism.

[00:29:37] Right.

[00:29:37] Digital path.

[00:29:38] Do you still see that to be the case?

[00:29:40] And if not, what is the percentages that you're seeing?

[00:29:45] Yeah, that's ringing pretty true to what we're seeing in market as well.

[00:29:50] And look, the telephone, I think, is always going to be very high up on the list because, well, one, if it's urgent, you know, for a client, they're going to pick up that phone.

[00:30:01] And also, we want to talk to other people.

[00:30:04] And that's what we're not trying to take away the people with this technology.

[00:30:08] We're trying to empower the people in the MSP to utilize this and do their job in a more efficient and empowerful way.

[00:30:17] A great example that I've got, I've got a bunch of partners now that when they're hiring people for frontline phone services, they're bringing them from retail and hospitality roles.

[00:30:28] I've got one guy in, one partner in New Zealand who hires ex-McDonald staff workers in New Zealand, McDonald's and Australia, frankly.

[00:30:39] If you've got McDonald's on your resume, you know, as an employer, that you're great at following a process, which is just a process, follow the bouncing ball, and you've got great customer service skills.

[00:30:50] So people answering the phone to these sometimes irate customers that need to be talked off a ledge, and now they're fixing the solution on that first call resolution.

[00:31:00] So we're seeing first call resolutions and CSATs going up, you know, in great, having great results.

[00:31:09] That's funny.

[00:31:10] So number one, I never heard that.

[00:31:12] That's good to know.

[00:31:13] Now I've learned something from you.

[00:31:14] McDonald's on the resume in those two countries.

[00:31:16] You know, a lot of MSPs do hire from all over the place.

[00:31:21] And you know where a lot of MSPs pick up people from?

[00:31:23] Really good people.

[00:31:25] And I've heard this consistently.

[00:31:26] People who work at the Apple store.

[00:31:29] Right?

[00:31:30] You know, like, or people have worked at maybe our version of this is like Starbucks.

[00:31:35] Yeah.

[00:31:36] Yeah.

[00:31:37] Or I've heard like the rental car places, like Enterprise or Hertz, right?

[00:31:41] Like those people, right?

[00:31:44] But to your point, right?

[00:31:45] Like I've never worked really a retail job before.

[00:31:49] And I've never worked like a restaurant type job before.

[00:31:52] But I hear, you know, at some point in your life, if you've done that, you've learned great skills.

[00:31:57] Absolutely.

[00:31:57] At the end of the day, if I can take a non-technical person that, and I guess this is at the heart of this whole conversation.

[00:32:10] Technology business is really people business.

[00:32:13] Couldn't agree more.

[00:32:14] Let me say that one more time.

[00:32:15] The technology business is really a people business.

[00:32:18] We're just using technology as tools to address the challenges of the day.

[00:32:24] So why are we struggling as an industry with hiring, retaining, account management, sales, marketing?

[00:32:33] We're geeky guys and girls, right?

[00:32:35] Like we're maybe not as personable in that lane.

[00:32:38] But the reason the customers from all different realms, I don't care if it's medical or legal or professional services and whatever.

[00:32:47] They are the people that are non-technical.

[00:32:50] They're, you know, paying us, right?

[00:32:52] People in the sandbox to solve their problems.

[00:32:54] That being said, if we can manage that interaction, right?

[00:33:01] Outside to inside, right?

[00:33:03] People working for your business and the people you're supporting.

[00:33:05] If we can make this better.

[00:33:07] You know, there's all sorts of people talk about customer experience.

[00:33:10] It's a thing.

[00:33:11] Whole category, actually.

[00:33:12] Um, that's what keeps your customers around.

[00:33:15] That's what keeps them paying you longer.

[00:33:17] That's what keeps your staff around.

[00:33:18] That's keeping them working for you longer.

[00:33:20] I think part of the underlying backbone problem, James.

[00:33:28] Burnout.

[00:33:30] Okay.

[00:33:30] The people in MSPs have the attrition rate that they do is they literally can't keep up with the volume.

[00:33:39] And they literally get to the point where they, you know, they get to the end of their shift and they literally have no juice left.

[00:33:47] It's a high pressure environment, obviously.

[00:33:49] Um, you know, you're constantly firefighting, jumping from one extreme to the next.

[00:33:55] So we definitely recognize that from a mental health perspective.

[00:33:58] If we can ease that burden and make their lives better and more efficient and effective, um, you're going to have happier, happier customers.

[00:34:09] Happier customers and happier employees.

[00:34:11] You know, we've, I've had great reports of MSPs actually using PR as a hiring initiative to try and compete with other industries when they're hiring.

[00:34:20] Cause hiring is a challenge.

[00:34:22] So now they're leading with in their, um, hiring process of saying, you come on board here and you get to play with, you know, great tech, you know, machine learning, AI, natural language.

[00:34:33] So play around with this tech and, and they love it.

[00:34:35] They retain their staff.

[00:34:37] Interesting.

[00:34:38] I am.

[00:34:39] I gotta be honest, James.

[00:34:41] I think we're, we're talking a little bit about a unicorn scenario here.

[00:34:44] I almost have to, I'm almost hope that I want to see this thing.

[00:34:48] Cause it's, you know, you're creating, you're on one side of the conversation.

[00:34:52] You're saying, I'm going to take your person and potentially make them double on the efficiency list.

[00:34:58] Right.

[00:34:58] Time output tickets handled first call resolution.

[00:35:03] Right.

[00:35:03] We've talked, you said a lot of these things on the other side, you're saying, Hey, those people are going to be able to accomplish that and not be stressed out, burned out.

[00:35:11] And they'll be happier.

[00:35:13] Like we're talking about two things that usually do not equal each other, to be honest.

[00:35:19] Yeah.

[00:35:19] You nailed it.

[00:35:20] Um, it doesn't, it doesn't usually compute.

[00:35:23] Right.

[00:35:23] Um, and that's why we see that there's such a big need for this in our market, in our space.

[00:35:29] And, you know, when we were building this out internally, it was just for us as an internal project to help us become more efficient and scalable.

[00:35:36] And we were, you talked about peer groups before.

[00:35:39] So we were in peer groups and in fact, you know, I was sitting in our groups and they would see our numbers, our metrics, our first call resolution rates, tickets per tech per day, you know, all the metrics that you need to report on in those peer groups, as you, as you're familiar with.

[00:35:53] And they're like, what the heck are you guys doing down there?

[00:35:56] And when we showed them what we built, they wanted to jump on board.

[00:35:59] And that's effectively where peer was born out of is those peer groups.

[00:36:02] And, uh, because they could see it, um, you know, in its rawest form and the potential that it had to make a difference and an impact.

[00:36:10] And from there, it's just, it's just, uh, blown up really.

[00:36:13] Okay.

[00:36:15] Okay.

[00:36:15] So like from a financial sense, right?

[00:36:19] Like how do you, how is this consumed?

[00:36:23] Right.

[00:36:23] Like as an MSP, am I paying per engineer, per customer, per user, like, you know, trying to figure out like, Hey, if I'm not, I'm going to hold off on hiring a body, a person.

[00:36:36] Yeah.

[00:36:37] How does the math work where this is actually giving me a little bit of an extra runway?

[00:36:42] Yeah.

[00:36:43] Yeah.

[00:36:43] So we've got a couple of different pricing models to help MSPs get into it.

[00:36:47] Um, the standard one is, is like a, a dollar figure per end point per month.

[00:36:52] And that fluctuates depending on the volume and the term of the contract, but to help our partners get into that and, and ramp into that type of a model.

[00:37:02] We came out earlier this year with a usage based or a consumption based model where it's just a platform fee to help cover the hosting.

[00:37:08] And then you pay for what you're using.

[00:37:11] Okay.

[00:37:12] So it's kind of like an RMM in that, in that realm, right?

[00:37:16] Where if I have 500 end points in my RMM and I want to use P on the 500 end points, I'm paying 500 end points, whatever the P at charges.

[00:37:25] Is that right?

[00:37:26] Correct.

[00:37:26] Yeah.

[00:37:27] Okay.

[00:37:28] Okay.

[00:37:28] And so is there a minimum?

[00:37:31] Is there a term, you know, like obviously end customers come and go.

[00:37:36] We don't know where they are in the customer life cycle and the journey of an MSP.

[00:37:40] So like, let's say I sign up today.

[00:37:42] I had 500 end points.

[00:37:43] I lose a customer.

[00:37:44] Now I'm short 50 end points.

[00:37:45] I'm at 450.

[00:37:46] Sign another customer.

[00:37:47] Now I end up going from 450 to 550.

[00:37:50] Like, you know, the ebb and flow of everything changes on a regular now.

[00:37:53] Yeah, of course.

[00:37:54] Of course.

[00:37:55] Look, I mean, it's pretty standard in terms of our contracts and terms.

[00:38:00] And depending on, you know, the term that you choose, it'll bring different pricing, right?

[00:38:05] The longer the term, we can reserve instances and give partial better discounts.

[00:38:09] So in terms of the minimum, though, we don't technically, we don't have a minimum because of the now usage based model.

[00:38:16] There's a platform fee.

[00:38:17] It's a flat fee.

[00:38:18] And then you're paying for your consumption.

[00:38:20] But I go back to the point that we were talking about earlier.

[00:38:24] It really depends on is this something that you need in your business if you're less than 500 end points?

[00:38:28] Like, are you getting enough tickets to warrant like the ROI and automating it?

[00:38:33] And that's where we'll have a conversation around that.

[00:38:35] Like, I do have partners that have got less than 500 end points because they're on that growth journey.

[00:38:40] They don't want to get this in.

[00:38:41] They're starting their MSP.

[00:38:43] And, you know, they want to set the good, solid foundations for growth.

[00:38:47] They don't have to hire in that linear fashion that we spoke about.

[00:38:51] But, yeah, obviously, the more tickets that you're doing, the better your ROI is going to be at those higher volumes, right?

[00:38:59] Okay.

[00:39:00] And then, like, does it matter what my base platform stack is?

[00:39:05] Like my PSA, my RMM, my remote access tool, my documentation tool?

[00:39:09] Like, does it matter?

[00:39:11] Or does the conversation change depending on what my underlying stack is?

[00:39:15] Yeah, look, the only thing that matters from a tech stack perspective is a ticketing system.

[00:39:21] So, like I said, our core integration is into that ticketing system because, like I said, we believe everything needs to be ticket-centric.

[00:39:30] And that's how we're reading the tickets, the machine learning setup in there, and the AI is triggering off different workflows and automations out of the PSA.

[00:39:37] So, unless you're with a ticketing system that we support, and right now that's ConnectWise, Autotask, and Halo PSA, then you'll have to be on the waiting list, unfortunately.

[00:39:49] We're bringing out more PSAs as the demand comes, but we've got a really good client base there that we're focusing on adding value to and growing it from there.

[00:39:58] Outside of that, you know, typically we've got a lot of the integrations covered that are required when we're resolving those tickets.

[00:40:09] But if we don't have that integration, what you can do is if you gain API access to that third party and build out a script via, or activity via PowerShell to do the automation, you're off to the races.

[00:40:22] And as you know, you're pretty familiar with that.

[00:40:24] Like, that's a pretty broad...

[00:40:28] I mean, PowerShell is very, I mean, very powerful, almost to the point where some people turn that functionality off because it can be abused.

[00:40:35] But, you know, in the context of what we're talking about, I mean, if you...

[00:40:39] Again, if you have the skills to build it, a lot of things at your fingertips, for sure.

[00:40:44] Well, it comes back to that conversation we had earlier around RPA.

[00:40:49] You know, the reason why we built our platform the way we did was because when we're talking to MSPs in the market, they don't have Python developers or, you know, those types of specials.

[00:41:01] So they've got to hire them or, like you said, contract a third party, which can be, you know, expensive.

[00:41:05] So, but most MSPs have someone that, you know, can dabble around with PowerShell.

[00:41:11] So let me ask you this question.

[00:41:13] Let's say there's an MSP you run into who has invested in down RMM lane, right?

[00:41:18] They built out all this stuff inside of the RMM scripts.

[00:41:22] You know, I know a lot of the RMMs can use PowerShell, but a lot of them, like, they have their own scripting language, right?

[00:41:29] Inside of that.

[00:41:30] Can they leverage the investment there if there already is one in what you're doing or they have to port that to PowerShell?

[00:41:38] Yeah, it depends what they're trying to do.

[00:41:41] But effectively, if you think about it, if that RMM is triggering a ticket event in the ticketing system, which most oftentimes it is, you know, in those examples that you're referring to, that's where PIA can pick it up, understand what it is, and then kick off its workflow in PIA as well.

[00:41:57] Okay.

[00:41:58] Well, I mean, like, usually the RMM has an agent, which I didn't even get to.

[00:42:01] We'll talk about it in a second.

[00:42:02] But, like, in order for PIA to do what it's doing, is there a PIA agent sitting on an endpoint in order to do what you do?

[00:42:09] And then, you know, like, does that sit side by side with the RMM agent?

[00:42:14] They play nicely next to each other, I guess, if that exists.

[00:42:17] That kind of thing.

[00:42:19] Yeah, a great question.

[00:42:20] So one that comes up often, right?

[00:42:22] So we actually started working with, early in our journey, we started working with the RMM tools.

[00:42:27] Because, as you just referred to, you can put your scripts and execute them, and you're off to the races.

[00:42:33] The challenge that we found when we were working with both Kaseya and ConnectWise's dev teams was the polling nature of those RMMs, right?

[00:42:41] Every 30, 60, 90 seconds.

[00:42:43] And it doesn't sound like a lot of time, but if you've got a workflow, like the one we talked to earlier, which is a new user onboarding, which has got a couple hundred activities firing off, that really blows it out.

[00:42:56] And also, you have to babysit the RMM then to do the work.

[00:43:00] So it's a double-edged sword there.

[00:43:02] So, you know, those workflows were taking about 30 to 40 minutes when we're using the RMM, which when we're trying to automate a task, the problem that we were trying to solve for originally was how do we do this faster, more efficient?

[00:43:15] Let's take an same amount of time to do it manually.

[00:43:17] We're not really winning anywhere.

[00:43:19] So that's why we developed our own agent very early in the piece.

[00:43:23] It's very lightweight, so it does play nice next to the RMMs.

[00:43:26] The RMMs are used to push it out.

[00:43:28] It's also a globally whitelisted application with ThreatLocker.

[00:43:33] So that's all good there as well.

[00:43:35] But what we found by using that agent and executing the PowerShell on the endpoint,

[00:43:40] it brought it down from that 35 minutes when we're using the RMM down to under seven minutes with the agent.

[00:43:47] Wow.

[00:43:48] That definitely runs a lot faster.

[00:43:52] Have you seen MSPs like basically discontinue use of the RMM and have PIA then step in to kind of take over?

[00:44:03] Or is it not quite apple to apple there?

[00:44:05] Yeah, not quite.

[00:44:07] So we're not trying to displace the RMM.

[00:44:09] Be pretty clear on that.

[00:44:11] So we're not doing any like patch management and the stuff that the RMM is really core for.

[00:44:18] So what our agent is doing is it's just executing the PowerShell script commands from the platform.

[00:44:26] Okay.

[00:44:26] Fair.

[00:44:27] All right.

[00:44:28] I get that.

[00:44:29] There is definitely some overlap.

[00:44:31] So a good example, a good use case is like software deployment.

[00:44:35] Now, I know you can deploy via your RMM, which is great.

[00:44:39] But now you can do it within the ticketing system without leaving the ticketing system.

[00:44:45] And in fact, like a dispatcher now can do your software deployment with PIA.

[00:44:49] Wow.

[00:44:50] So you don't need that typically, you know, depending on your RMM, but typically your level two engineer taking their time up to go and install software via RMM script execution.

[00:45:01] Yeah, you can do it with the click of a button and within a couple of seconds, your dispatchers install Adobe on the endpoint.

[00:45:07] Interesting.

[00:45:08] That is very, you know, a little bit of an overlap, but just a different way.

[00:45:15] So let's say I'm sure you have a catalog of the software that you support as part of the deployment process.

[00:45:22] If somebody, you know, would you, is it a professional services thing?

[00:45:27] Or would if somebody, an MSP is like, hey, I have this, I don't know, electronic health record app that I need to install for my customer.

[00:45:35] Here's the executable.

[00:45:36] Can you help me package this?

[00:45:38] And do you do that?

[00:45:39] Or do they have to figure out how to create?

[00:45:43] Um, no, it's super simple.

[00:45:45] In the backend of PIA, we've got a software application library.

[00:45:50] So in your backend portal, and you can see it online on our YouTube channel.

[00:45:54] There's a bunch of demos that show this in action.

[00:45:59] But effectively, yeah, there's a few ways.

[00:46:02] There's, you can upload a traditional MSI or EXE file, or PIA can also be a Winget repository.

[00:46:10] So you can build out your library and Winget and PIA can be utilized to install software via that mechanism as well.

[00:46:17] I guess I overlooked something, but I'm sure you'll answer very quickly.

[00:46:22] Does the MSP need to put this in on a server somewhere or in the cloud or in their data center?

[00:46:30] Like how does, like, I get the agent needs to be installed, but like it has to connect back to something.

[00:46:35] Is that something that you're managing or do they install software somewhere?

[00:46:40] Yeah, so it's a SaaS offering.

[00:46:42] So, you know, in terms of the client's environment that we're working with, like in the MSP's client, it just depends on their environment.

[00:46:49] So if they're working with, like, they want to automate or connect one of their clients at a cloud-based client, for example, you know, we would integrate using the Graph API, Microsoft Graph.

[00:47:02] If they're on-premise, they'd be an agent on the domain controller to do the execution and the automation.

[00:47:07] So it just depends on the client's environment.

[00:47:09] And that's why earlier we're not saying we've got all those tickets that we're automating.

[00:47:13] We've actually built them out several times because we're catering for an on-premise password reset, you know, a cloud hybrid.

[00:47:21] So it's a different workflow that we've built out for every scenario.

[00:47:25] So you can imagine if you're doing that with, like, an RPA, that's a lot of work that you're going to have to build out and then manage and version and maintain over time.

[00:47:34] So, yeah, we've got you covered.

[00:47:37] Interesting.

[00:47:37] And then, you know, I assume because you're working with different size MSPs, you know, do they get, you know, like the ones that are very security focused, right?

[00:47:48] Because they're end customers in multiple, you know, end verticals, right?

[00:47:52] You know, the security stuff and the, you know, certifications and, like, sometimes, like, Australia is one of those where, like, data has to be in borders for a lot of, you know, types of it, especially government.

[00:48:05] I know for a fact they want that stuff in borders.

[00:48:07] So, you know, is that a conversation that happens, I guess, in the pre-implementation conversation?

[00:48:12] Like, where does this need, what region and, you know, all the different security checkboxes?

[00:48:18] Yeah, look, absolutely.

[00:48:21] So coming from an MSP, we knew we weren't going to be able to, you know, sell to other MSPs unless we had that at our forefront, forefront of our mind, right?

[00:48:29] So the way that we've architected the platform and the way that we've gone about getting our certifications is testament to that.

[00:48:37] So very early in our journey, we became ISO 27001 compliant, SOC 2 Type 2 for the UK and Europe GDPR.

[00:48:46] And we've also got HIPAA attestations as well.

[00:48:49] So they're very much security focused.

[00:48:52] We've got a CISO on staff.

[00:48:53] And in terms of, I guess, where we're hosting the data, it depends on the MSP.

[00:49:01] So because it's cloud solution, we would host it in the nearest data center for the MSP.

[00:49:08] Okay, that's fair.

[00:49:09] You know, just these, I'm sure, questions that come up all the time, right?

[00:49:13] All the time.

[00:49:14] I'm thinking about it, right?

[00:49:15] I was like, okay, what about this?

[00:49:16] What about that?

[00:49:20] From a usability standpoint, you're saying, hey, I could take a maybe non-technical person and have them press buttons and let the system run.

[00:49:27] I assume that the implementer of this inside of the MSP organization probably needs to not, you know, have different rights, roles, permissions, right, across the organization.

[00:49:39] Like pressing a button as a non-technical user and more access is going to differ depending on probably how deep of technology background you have and many other factors.

[00:49:51] I guess that's something that happens during the implementation of this.

[00:49:55] Like you kind of craft what those are in the beginning.

[00:49:58] Absolutely.

[00:49:58] Yeah.

[00:49:59] So we put a lot of focus in the implementation and the onboarding of our solution.

[00:50:05] So typically it takes an MSP anywhere between two to four weeks to get peer up and running.

[00:50:10] And that's not two to four weeks of an FTE.

[00:50:12] That's a couple of hours a day working with our team to help build it, test it, and train up the techs and get them up and running.

[00:50:19] And the beautiful thing about it is once that project's completed, day one in production, all those automations that we talked about, they're ready to go.

[00:50:28] So that's why we see really good instant ROI out of the gate.

[00:50:32] But to your point around non-technical resources, doing tickets, that's great.

[00:50:38] And we're getting lots of feedback for that.

[00:50:40] But what really excites me is where we allow your MSP clients to do their own tickets.

[00:50:47] So this is what we call zero touch and auto close out of tickets.

[00:50:52] So we built a forms portal, you can call it, where your end client, the MSP end client, can go in and complete a form.

[00:51:02] So they're not talking to a chatbot or interacting in that sort of sense.

[00:51:05] Typically a form that they're used to filling out anyways.

[00:51:08] And the difference between this and other forms that they'd be used to is it's actively going out to the environment and pulling in the information because of the integrations that we have.

[00:51:20] So when they hit submit on that form, not only does a ticket get generated into the ticketing system, but peers, automations and workflows are triggering off and doing the work before it even gets there.

[00:51:32] And in some cases, completely resolves the ticket and closes it out in the PSA without a technician even looking at it.

[00:51:40] Wow.

[00:51:41] That's exciting in what we're seeing now.

[00:51:44] So I don't think you're going to give all 60 scenarios in the end customer portal somewhere.

[00:51:53] Like, I assume they're submitting a form for onboarding, offboarding.

[00:51:57] I assume they're submitting a form for, well, I mean, a ticket portal is a form in itself, right?

[00:52:03] Like when they're submitting something.

[00:52:04] But, you know, and it sounds like you have also tied into like either the distributors or the Microsoft or the whatever, right?

[00:52:15] To do license allocation, stuff like that.

[00:52:18] I mean, clearly some of that's happening.

[00:52:22] What other examples of end user self-servicing are we talking about?

[00:52:26] Like, I almost feel a little bit scared to give that user too much, you know, button pressing time here.

[00:52:33] Yeah, look, you're right.

[00:52:35] And we've designed it in a way that you as the MSP have the ultimate say around what automation do you trigger off to be zero touch and auto close?

[00:52:47] And also who in that business gets the ability to do that?

[00:52:50] You know, typically you might allow the HR representative or if you're in a co-managed relationship, allow those types of resources to complete forms and do that sort of submission.

[00:53:00] But you might only give, you know, one or two forms to, you know, the managers or the staff members.

[00:53:07] A great scenario, one of my partners told us was they work with a lot of CPAs.

[00:53:12] And as you know, come tax time, there's deadlines and accountants locking themselves out all the time.

[00:53:18] And if they lock themselves out on a Saturday night and they can't get in, it hits the fan, right?

[00:53:25] So now they've got the ability to go into the Forms Portal, unlock their account and get back up and running again.

[00:53:33] So we're seeing some really interesting stories like that coming back from our partners.

[00:53:38] Interesting.

[00:53:39] Well, yeah, self-servicing there.

[00:53:41] As long as it's done securely, right?

[00:53:44] You know, unfortunately we've heard of the wrong people saying getting access to people's accounts, not through hacking, not through malware, not through phishing.

[00:53:51] You know, they just fool somebody to make them think they're somebody they're not, right?

[00:53:55] But, you know, we know all about the MGM Casinos thing from November, right?

[00:54:01] Where they just called into the help desk and, you know.

[00:54:04] Yeah.

[00:54:06] It's funny you bring that one up.

[00:54:07] It's not funny, but it's interesting you bring that one up.

[00:54:10] We actually had one of our partners build out a workflow using Pia's RPA.

[00:54:18] And because we've got a global SMS gateway built into the platform, they actually built out a workflow that whenever someone rang the help desk, Pia would send them a token.

[00:54:30] The end user would have to read it back out to the technician.

[00:54:33] They type it into Pia and authenticate.

[00:54:36] It's George on the other end of the line.

[00:54:38] All right, let's keep working this ticket.

[00:54:40] And that's the sort of stuff that isn't on our website in terms of our automations.

[00:54:44] This is a film that a partner built in a couple of weeks with their, you know, engineer.

[00:54:50] So that sort of stuff is real.

[00:54:53] I love hearing those sorts of stories and the application of Pia in those sorts of scenarios too.

[00:54:58] That's awesome.

[00:54:59] That's good work.

[00:55:00] I mean, you know, whatever, if you're listening to this podcast, please have some mechanism.

[00:55:05] I don't care if it's Pia or anything else, but have something here to validate your users.

[00:55:11] I mean, it is literally the lowest hanging thing, you know, fruit from the tree that can be exploited by the bad guys.

[00:55:18] And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it.

[00:55:22] Unless they're using AI to just like make a voice sound something.

[00:55:25] I don't know.

[00:55:25] Now we're getting a little bit crazy.

[00:55:26] But as we go into wild, wild west land of AI.

[00:55:30] James, how do people get more information about, I mean, obviously Pia.ai, but if they want to talk to someone, if they want to understand pricing, see a demo.

[00:55:39] It sounds like there's a YouTube page with some stuff there too.

[00:55:42] Send them into the right place.

[00:55:44] Where do they go?

[00:55:45] Yeah.

[00:55:45] Awesome, George.

[00:55:46] So obviously the website is the easiest mechanism.

[00:55:50] They can go in.

[00:55:51] There's links to our YouTube channel.

[00:55:52] They can book a demo.

[00:55:54] If they want to have a chat with one of the team members.

[00:55:58] I recommend the YouTube channel is a great place to start because you can see demos.

[00:56:02] You can see partner testimonials, like what the impact is having in their business.

[00:56:07] And some of the new releases that we've recently came out with, which have been pretty game changing to the platform and our partners.

[00:56:14] And then our LinkedIn page, we're constantly throwing up different information and feedback out on LinkedIn there on the socials.

[00:56:26] One more question on the way out the door because I feel like everybody always asks this question.

[00:56:30] How does support work?

[00:56:33] Yeah.

[00:56:34] So support, great question.

[00:56:36] So because we're a global company, we've got teams in ANZ, EMEA and North America.

[00:56:47] So it's a follow the sun type support model.

[00:56:51] There are different teams looking after you.

[00:56:54] Our partners are different parts of your journey.

[00:56:56] So onboarding and implementation and then post-implementation.

[00:56:59] We've got client success, technical account management team.

[00:57:03] There's, you know, our Discord community is if anyone's doing building their own automations, that's highly popular.

[00:57:12] Our dev team and CTO, quite frankly, spend way too much time in there, but I love it because they're developers.

[00:57:19] And then the partners, I can see them exchanging, you know, information and helping each other out, which is really great because, you know, there's nothing better than having a strong community around this and pushing it forward for everyone's benefit.

[00:57:32] That's awesome.

[00:57:33] That's awesome.

[00:57:33] The Discord community is definitely a popular thing these days.

[00:57:37] Awesome.

[00:57:37] James, are we going to see you?

[00:57:39] Sounds like you're, somebody's presenting in Orlando at IT Nation.

[00:57:44] I want to, I might jump into that session and find out what did ChatGPT do with all these tickets?

[00:57:49] That's going to be awesome.

[00:57:51] So that'll be our CTO, Aaron.

[00:57:53] He'll be presenting on that one.

[00:57:55] He's got a couple of sessions.

[00:57:57] I'll be up there.

[00:57:58] I'm curious myself.

[00:57:59] Sounds like it went the wrong direction.

[00:58:01] I want to see how far.

[00:58:03] Well, I mean, this is, this is the thing, right?

[00:58:05] You know, we all want to be using AI, but just what type of AI?

[00:58:10] You know, you said it's the buzzword at the moment, but let's make it practical and impactful to our businesses and make sure we're using the right tools.

[00:58:18] Awesome.

[00:58:18] So we'll definitely see you guys at IT Nation.

[00:58:21] Datocons next week.

[00:58:22] You guys get to be there as well?

[00:58:23] Yeah.

[00:58:24] I'm heading up to Robin Robbins tomorrow as well.

[00:58:28] We'll be in Miami and then CMIT's conference at the end of the year as well.

[00:58:33] Ah, CMIT.

[00:58:34] And then I assume Datocon Sydney as well.

[00:58:38] Datocon Sydney as well.

[00:58:39] Yeah.

[00:58:40] It's a busy, busy few weeks.

[00:58:42] It is crazy time in the sandbox for sure.

[00:58:45] James, thanks for jumping on for a little, for a little chat here.

[00:58:50] Got some cool things going on.

[00:58:52] And, you know, again, this Zen place in the universe where like we can do more, but still have happy people.

[00:59:01] Like sounds like it might be too good to be true, but hey, I'm willing to, I want to see, I want to see this equals scenario.

[00:59:08] It'd be good to see if it's, it's actually attainable.

[00:59:13] Absolutely, George.

[00:59:14] Well, look, it's been a pleasure.

[00:59:15] Thanks for having us on.

[00:59:16] We'll talk to you soon.

[00:59:17] Cheers, my friend.

[00:59:18] Have a good one, guys.

[00:59:18] And you'll see this episode at mspinitiative.com under session shortly.

[00:59:22] And we'll see you guys hopefully on the road here in the next, I don't know, 30 days.

[00:59:25] So many things going on.

[00:59:27] Safe travels and talk to you soon.

[00:59:29] Bye.

[00:59:30] Bye now.