Atera, which formally launched its joint RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) and PSA (Professional Services Automation) platform in January of this year has supplemented the core solution with the addition of Business Intelligence capability through what it is calling the Benchmark.
Atera, which is aggressively expanding in North America this year, believes that the technology of their solution makes them uniquely able to generate the data necessary to derive value from such an offering.
Its architecture was purpose-built for the Internet of Things environment, and can hold massive numbers of nodes.
“Our whole architecture and strategy is based on our not limiting the number of agents an MSP can install, and so we receive data from millions of sensors and agents,” said Gil Pekelman, Atera’s CEO. “The amount of data we have the capability to collected and storage thus becomes very significant. We asked our user base if they wanted the capability to use metrics from this data that were important to them, and the answer was a unanimous ‘yes.’ This closes the loop on the technology that we have put into place.”
The Benchmark is refreshed daily with the data from participating Atera customers. It tracks metrics like type of alerts, ticket load during work hours, response time, resolution time and other important key performance indicators.
“To get this kind of insight, you need to have a lot of data available,” Pekelman said. “Even larger MSPs, while they might benchmark themselves in the same way, because they try to improve all the time, still won’t have our capability to get these large amounts of data.” The data is actually analyzed and visualized through Microsoft PowerBI, which is embedded in the Atera website.
Pekelman said that the Benchmark gives MSPs tools they can use to make them better at their craft.
“This Benchmark tells them the path to running a really good business,” he said. “It really goes out to two separate communities. For companies that have been thinking about moving into managed services, but who have not yet made the move, this is like a compass, providing them information about the key metrics of the business. For an existing MSP, this is information which will help them run a much more profitable service and assist in the retention of customers.”
Pekelman also emphasized that the Benchmark is not being limited to just their existing MSP base, but is being offered broadly without charge.
“This is not just for our users, but is being opened to the whole MSP community,” he said. “You don’t have to be our customer to use it. You don’t have to pay us anything.”
