Just six months after he formally joined the company, N-able Technologies has added “president” to the title of current chief operating office J.P. Jauvin, a title previously held by CEO Gavin Garbutt.

Jauvin continues to report to Garbutt, who said the two will increasingly split strategic duties, with Garbutt remaining the “public face” of N-able on customer- and partner-facing activities, while Jauvin will focus primarily inside the organization, building out additional automation tools and maximizing the product mix available to the company’s MSP customers.

The announcement is part of a larger shift in strategy at the Ottawa-based remote management software provider. Here are the details.

For most of the last couple of years, N-able has been banging the drum about 100 per cent IT coverage – helping managed service providers get more and more of their customers’ networked devices under supervision and management. And that drive remains firmly on the desk of Garbutt.

But Garbutt said Jauvin will open something of a second front, bringing his experience with automation and management software to helping N-able’s MSPs drive more solutions through those managed devices, and to more efficiently manage more devices with the same level of investment in resources.

“Now that we’ve delivered the ‘secret sauce’ to our partners in penetrating SMB in a really scalable way, how do we help them sell more managed services to their customers – around the network, around desktop, around backup, around security,” Garbutt said. “How do we help these guys expand their service offerings so they increase their value to their customers.”

The company’s roadmap for 2011 calls for the optimization of MSP resources in the NOC and the help desk, all of which falls under Jauvin’s watch. The company plans to do this by investing heavily in automation and optimization, raising the number of customers a service desk technician of NOC operator can manage.

“These are the real metrics that go right to the business’ bottom line, and we’re building our products to that effect, looking at profitability per technician and quality of service delivery per technician,” Garbutt said.

Garbutt said the company would also keep an eye on issues like onboarding customers faster and more efficiently as well as improving customers’ opportunities with existing customers.  “In many ways, we’re the sum or our partners’ work, and JP’s job is to make sure that sum happens,” he said.

But that’s not to say the company’s eye is off its focus on increasing the number of devices its MSP customers manage. Garbutt said “100 per cent IT coverage continues to be a primary focus,” but that it will continue to add additional types of solutions to its mix to help maximize partners revenue opportunities with those managed devices. On December 1, the company will start to offer two such offerings; its previously announced Netflow Manager and Remote Audit Manager offerings.

“My point to partners is that you have an unfair competitive advantage over your competitors right now,” he said. “Go out and maximize that – get them un your dashboard, show them value, show them their problems and help them with the solutions, up-sell and cross-sell. We’re going to take the industry to a completely different level over the next 12 months.”

Garbutt said the company continues to see explosive growth in interest in managed services, noting that over the last year, its MSPs have increased the number of SMB customers they managed by 75 per cent, and that’s accelerating. He said he’s confident that the company and its partners will “way overachieve” the goal of 100 per cent growth on its 100 per cent IT coverage mantra in time for its Partner Summit next fall.

“The trajectory is speeding up, now what we’ve got to do is make sure [partners] the ability to stale to manage this and the solutions to up-sell and cross-sell those customers,” he said.

Prior to joining N-able full-time in June, Jauvin had served as a consultant to the company. Garbutt said Jauvin’s promotion was “part of the grand plan” when bringing him on board six months ago.