Acronis has appointed company veteran Stephen Nichols as its first-ever country manager for Canada. He says this move shows an increased focus on the Canadian market for the MSP-focused security and backup vendor.

Previously a technical director of solutions engineering for Acronis, Nichols will move into a more sales and marketing role and take charge of all of the company’s efforts in Canada. Nichols said the company has been growing well in Canada in recent years but sees the opportunity to do more, as it has elevated Canada to the status of “focus country” within the company.

“We’re a very different market from the US, and I’ve been banging that drum for a while now,” Nichols said. “People within Acronis are paying attention to that. There’s lots of upside and lots of potential, and we’re putting some more investment into Canada to make our growth more strategic.”

Like many executives in new leadership roles, Nichols said his early-day goals involve listening and learning, building and strengthening Acronis’ relationships in the channel and with distributors, and getting a better sense of the Canadian channel’s wants and needs.

“This is a very tight-knit community, and I want to align with its leaders and understand their challenges,” he said.

At the same time, he’s building up the team in-country, looking to add five or six people to the Canadian roster in the next few months, with more to come if the new investments result in the desired growth. Nichols said it’s a priority to have account management resources in Canada, both for dual-language coverage and cultural reasons.

“Companies in Canada don’t like being told they’re small. A small business is a typical business here, and they are the engine that drives the economy,” Nichols said.

He’s also considering expanding the Canadian portion of Acronis’ company-wide “team up” program, which involves collaborating with an MSP and a sports organization to provide technology to raise Acronis’ profile. The company already has partnerships with the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers and local MSPs and reported interest in the Canadian MSP community in making “bigger deals and becoming more strategic.”

Another primary goal for Nichols is raising MSPs’ awareness of the various offerings Acronis brings to the market today. He said he still runs into MSPs who think of the company as a backup vendor but are unaware of its security and RMM offerings.

“We have three great pillars in backup and data recovery, security, and RMM,” Nichols said. “I think from a security point of view, we have a really complete solution for MSPs and IT professionals.”

He said the company is starting to see deals where security is the first win, instead of a land-and-expand deal powered initially by a backup solution. Acronis’s RMM solution is newer. It’s had pieces of an offering for some time but recently combined them into a single platform. However, RMM is an area where many MSPs have strong relationships.

“In the Canadian market, one of our biggest objectives is going to be to educate the market about the solution and the value we bring there,” Nichols said.

The other big thing Nichols wants to understand is the unknown unknowns. He thinks it’s important to talk to channel partners and find out what keeps them up at night and what Acronis can do to help them mitigate those challenges.

“I’m looking out for the next big thing, whether that’s the changing geopolitical environment, AI and how it’s impacting businesses and risk, or changes in regulation around security and data,” Nichols said.