Auvik moves beyond their long-time laser focus on network management software with a complementary SaaS management solution that uses technology from last year’s acquisition of Saaslio.
John Harden, Senior Marketing Manager for the ASM offering at Auvik
Today, Canadian network management firm Auvik has taken the first step in new CEO Doug Murray’s strategy to build out their solutions portfolio beyond their focus on cloud-based network management software, with complementary offerings that will diversify and increase their revenue sources. Auvik SaaS Management [ASM] is aimed at meeting the demand created by the growth of the SaaS market and provide organizations with greater security, operational efficiency, and cost management capabilities. The technology comes from the acquisition of Saaslio late last year, and is focused on delivery through MSP partners.
Doug Murray telegraphed this strategy when he became Auvik’s CEO in late 2002, and indicated that the company would broaden out from a single product approach that did network management to a broader platform approach.
“This is the first of the first complementary products around the core offering,” said John Harden, Senior Marketing Manager for the ASM offering at Auvik and the founder of Saaslio. “We think that SaaS management tools are a perfect complement for the platform, and this for our plan to monitor and manage the network, SaaS and beyond.”
The Saaslio technology provides deep visibility into SaaS management, and while lots of solutions that do some version of that have recently come onto the market, attracted by that same growth in the SaaS space, Harden said that their technology does it better.
“From our perspective, focusing on discovery for security is something that we have honed in on,” he stated. “We do discovery better, which allows us to take SaaS management further. We built an inventory of SaaS tools, which allows us to grab data that we don’t see in the competitive landscape. That’s a key reason why we are chosen in customer wins, that discovery. Challenges our customers had communicated to us also include cost operations and security, with 89% looking to better manage their SaaS environment.”
Harden also emphasized that being acquired by Auvik did not mean a let up in development as their technology was integrated into the Auvik platform.
“Not all our effort is integrating a platform,” he said. “We do both that and new development in tandem. We continue to improve on the employee onboard and offboard cycle, and have invested in security insights with out of the box reports. Auvik bought us to continue to build, and we have increased our development effort by 3x as part of these dual streams of innovation.”
Harden said that ASM also deals with the growing problem of shadow IT, in an environment where SaaS spending continues to grow by 15-20% annually, and in which shadow IT may account for 40% of IT expenditures.
“Shadow IT is still a top problem, and if it’s not top of mind among customers that may be due to a misunderstanding of how bad it has gotten.” Harden indicated. “That’s especially the case with another 20% growth in SaaS use forecast this year.”
Auvik SaaS Management is focused on MSPs.
“I came out of the MSP space myself, where I started as a tier one technician,” Harden said. “We tend to sell to the MSP because of benefits they receive from us which they bundle into their core stacks. There are efficiencies in employee onboarding and offboarding and some client onboarding. We tend to become embedded in their QBR processes. There is money to be made in the shadow IT space. We have also been finding some level of success in small and midmarket IT teams.”
ASM is licensed per user on a monthly basis.
“Right now. It’s a completely separate product from Auvik network management,” Harden indicated. “Customers can buy it as a standalone without Auvik, or they can buy both, although naturally we would prefer the latter.”
Harden stressed that SaaS management is something that will be critical for MSP partners in the very near future
“The key takeaway for me is that I’m very confident that SaaS management of the cloud environment will be critical for the MSP of the future,” he said. “The only real decision is that it just depends if they want to be an early adopter or not. No one is using less SaaS.”
