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70 Percent of MSPs Must Adapt Services to Capitalize on Internet of Things, AVG Study Reveals

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AMSTERDAM and SAN FRANCISCO – October 22, 2014 – Roughly 1-in-4 (26 percent) small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and managed services providers (MSPs) expect the Internet of Things (IoT) including multiple devices, wearables and Cloud-based services in general to generate more money for them than any of the other current big IT trends, according to a new survey announced today by AVG Technologies N.V. (NYSE: AVG), the online security company for devices, data and people. Almost three out of five (57 percent) SMBs agreed that IoT will help boost their revenues, a sentiment that was echoed by around two-thirds (67 percent) of MSP respondents. However just 18 percent of SMB respondents thought their IT provider was ahead of the curve regarding IoT management while 70 per cent of MSPs themselves admitted the need to adapt their services to meet customer expectations in this regard.

“Our MSP partners are telling us that the ‘Internet of Things’ is the one IT trend making an immediate difference to their bottom line and the business customers that they serve. A massive 7 out of 10 stated they need to amend their offerings to enable business growth.”  said Mike Foreman, AVG’s general manager, SMB

The study*, which interviewed 1,770 small businesses and MSPs in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia, also revealed more than half (55 percent) of MSP respondents say customers are demanding Internet of Things related services and over three quarters (77 percent) are planning to expand their service/product portfolio. However, they had better adapt quickly. Of those SMBs with an IT provider, 68% feel that their provider could improve their service with regard to Internet of Things offerings and understanding.

“The study shows clearly that as businesses grow to rely more and more on the Internet of Things and Cloud-based services to help generate revenue most MSPs are still some way short of being ready to help customers’ manage this,” continued Mike Foreman. “The research strongly indicates that MSPs need to significantly up their game and demonstrate enhanced levels of protection and control over their customers’ ever changing data and device needs.”

A summary of the other key findings in the study were:

SMBs

Almost half (46%) of SMBs think that the Internet of Things will be the IT trend that has the greatest impact on their organization over the next five years. An even higher proportion -around seven in ten (71%) – say that due to the Internet of Things their organization will need to take extra steps to secure and protect their data

  • Around three fifths (62%) of SMB respondents report that their organization has budget specifically assigned over the next 12 months for the development of Internet of Things solutions. 49% have a moderate or substantial budget assigned for these solutions.
  • Only 18% of SMB respondents say that their IT provider is completely ahead of the curve with regard to the Internet of Things and the potential for their business. Of those with an IT provider, 68% feel that their provider could improve their service with regard to Internet of Things offerings and understanding.
  • The majority (84%) of SMB respondents say that their organization has purchased mobile devices within the last year, spending an average of over $6,500 on these devices. Of those who have purchased mobile devices within the last 12 months, SMB respondents estimate that their organization spends an average of around $4,500 in hidden costs annually.

MSPs

  • Over half (55%) of MSP respondents state that customers are demanding Internet of Things related services and seven in ten (70% but only 56% Germany) say that they will amend their services based on the wants of the customer.
  • However, less than two fifths (38%) of MSPs say that their organization currently has an integrated remote monitoring and management platform.
  • Around three fifths (58%) of MSP respondents say that they will need to join up with cutting edge partners in order to successfully offer Internet of Things-related services. Currently only 38% of MSP respondents feel that the vendors they work with are cutting edge.
  • Furthermore around three in ten MSP respondents feel that their current vendor helps make efficiency savings (31%) or productive gains (25%) for their customers.

* AVG commissioned independent technology market research specialist Vanson Bourne to undertake this research.  1770 interviews were carried out during September 2014 with IT and marketing decision-makers of organizations with of 1 – 500 employees with and 85/15 per cent split between SMBs and MSPs. Interviews were performed across five countries: UK, US, Canada, Germany and Australia. Respondents to this research came from a range of industry sectors, with only the public sector excluded.

For more information, please see our video on the survey findings:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/70-percent-of-msps-must-adapt-services-to-capitalize-on-internet-of-things-avg-study-reveals-573155550.html

About AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG)

AVG is the online security company providing leading software and services to secure devices, data and people.  AVG has over 182 million active users, as of June 30, 2014, using AVG’s products and services including Internet security, performance optimization, and personal privacy and identity protection. By choosing AVG’s products, users become part of a trusted global community that engages directly with AVG to provide feedback and offer mutual support to other customers.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

AVG

What does the future hold for women in Tech

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Enormous untapped investment opportunity exists for venture capitalists smart enough to look at the numbers and fund women entrepreneurs

Prof. Candida Brush

 

As you may have gleaned from my columns and history as a woman entrepreneur in tech, I’m a huge supporter of getting more women into the field.  Indeed, I feel that women bring a unique perspective to tech, business, investing and leadership.

For many of us in the tech field, it was disappointing to hear the comments of Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella’s when asked last week at pre-imminent women’s tech conference about his advice to women interested in advancing their careers – i.e. specifically on getting a pay raise. In an interview at “Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing” event, which you can read an account of here, he appears to suggest women should be quiet and wait until the system works… The comments, which produced immediate backlash, drew Nadella to respond on Twitter trying to clarify his position – that he had been inarticulate… And wrong.

Unfortunately, pay parity remains an enormous hurdle for women. As I addressed in my column on Labor Day, it’s the 77% rule (women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the U.S.).  And while Silicon Valley has been kinder in pay parity (when job parity exists), as other recent Silicon Valley research has pointed out, there also seems to be a 30% rule when it comes to women getting tech jobs.

Certainly, more work lies ahead to change these numbers and the mindset that encourages them.

But I also was struck recently by some encouraging findings in a comprehensive new survey on venture capital funding for women entrepreneurs by Babson College in the U.S. – which points to why there should be more women entrepreneurs.

The report found a narrowing but continuing significant gender gap in venture capital–funded businesses: Early-stage investment in companies with a woman on the executive team has tripled to 15% from 5% in the last 15 years. Despite this positive trend, 85 percent of all venture capital–funded businesses have no women on the executive team – and only 2.7% of VC-funded companies had a woman CEO.

But the report also contained this jewel: Companies with women on the executive team perform better! The study found that companies with a woman on the executive team are more likely to have higher valuations at both first and last funding (64 percent higher and 49 percent higher, respectively).

Called the Women Entrepreneurs 2014: Bridging the Gender Gap in Venture Capital, the study was conducted by Brush and fellow professors leading the Diana Project, a forward-thinking program founded in 1996 to research women-led businesses globally. The report provides the first comprehensive analysis of U.S. venture capital investments in women entrepreneurs in 15 years.

The study analyzed 6,793 unique companies in the United States that received venture capital funding between 2011 and 2013. You can read the executive summary here. The report findings and recommendations were shared on September 30 at an event presented by Babson’s Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership in partnership with the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women Program.

Babson professor Brush noted in the report, “Only a small portion of early-stage investment is going to women entrepreneurs, yet our data suggest that venture capital–funded businesses with women on the executive team perform better on multiple dimensions. The venture capital community, therefore, may be missing good investment opportunities by not investing in women entrepreneurs.”

However, another key finding of the report, and one less encouraging, was that the number of women decision-makers in the VC community has dropped since 1999 – from 10% to 6%.

Among the Babson report’s recommendations to change the paradigm: Showcase the success of growth-oriented, venture-funded women entrepreneurs. I agree. There certainly have been a number of successful women VCs and angel investors in the past 15 years. Long-time angel investor Esther Dyson and VC partners Heidi Roizen of Draper Fisher, Jurvetson and Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad, and more recently Margit Wennemachers of Andreessen Horowitz, are a few that come to mind.

I think the opportunities are there for women, but that there can certainly be more, a fact borne out by this study. Perhaps the silver lining is that companies and VCs not motivated by a sense of equal play will be inclined to inclusion by a mercenary motive – from a closer scrutiny at the women leaders’ financial performance.

There is a huge opportunity here for people who can think outside the common dichotomy of man/CEO; man/VC; woman/somewhere else. I just look at this and think what we are missing by not navigating outside of an outdated business paradigm!

 

On another note: I’m extremely proud to be a judge for The Pitch 2014, the small business competition in the UK. AVG is a lead sponsor and mentor for the event that concludes next week in Bristol on Oct. 23.

AVG

The Changing Landscape of BYOD

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“Bring your own device” has become increasingly common in the workplace as employees use their own tablets and phones for work-related activities, and their own laptops from home or the local Starbucks. Increasingly the lines are blurred with regards to privacy and questions of data ownership.

A recently passed California law has perhaps shown the way that the future holds. Little commented on when passed in August, this law has real-world implications and may have many ramifications with regard to privacy, security and data. (See ruling here)

In Colin Cochran v. Schwan’s Home Service, Inc., the California Court of Appeals in August reversed a Superior Court in Los Angeles County and ruled that “when employees must use their personal cell phones for work-related calls, Labor Code section 2802 requires the employer to reimburse them.”

The Order points out the purpose of the California Statute is “to prevent employers from passing their operating expenses on to their employees.” Specifically, it notes the following:

Pursuant to section 2802, subdivision (a), “an employer shall indemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer.”

The key question in the case was this:

Does an employer always have to reimburse an employee for the reasonable expense of the mandatory use of a personal cell phone, or is the reimbursement obligation limited to the situation in which the employee incurred an extra expense that he or she would not have otherwise incurred absent the job?

The Court’s answer was “that reimbursement is always required. Otherwise, the employer would receive a windfall because it would be passing its operating expenses onto the employee.” The Court ruled as follows:

Thus, to be in compliance with section 2802, the employer must pay some reasonable percentage of the employee’s cell phone bill. Because of the differences in cell phone plans and [work]-related scenarios, the calculation of reimbursement must be left to the trial court and parties in each particular case.

Time of course will tell how the expenses of purchase, maintenance and usage of employee-owned tablets, laptops, and home computers used for business are impacted by courts that follow the ruling in this case.

The court’s opinion is limited to reimbursement under California law. It doesn’t specifically mention privacy. I’d hate to speculate on any legal matter, but one can naturally wonder that if an employer must now pay for certain usage of devices, then is that employer entitled to all the information on that device?

To put it plainly, if the employer is paying for your tablet, does the employer get to look at all your emails and contact information? Who owns the data and intellectual copyright?

These questions no doubt will be settled as more cases come to court. But we’ve seen that when it comes to technology, legal precedent often lags behind technology.

In the meantime, it’s essential for businesses to have clear agreements, notices and policies, including a BYOD policy. See AVG’s eBook on BYOD for a good overview on the benefits, issues, risks and how to better protect your company’s data in the BYOD world.

AVG

AVG CloudCare scoops award in independent tests

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AVG CloudCare’s AntiVirus 2014 component has just received an award following its first ever participation in one of the industry’s top security comparison tests. The latest Virus Bulletin gave us a score of 91.2 out of a possible 100 in both Reactive and Proactive tests.

In an age where security breaches are common and a company trades more than ever on its reputation, small businesses simply cannot afford to take any chances when it comes to protecting their confidential or customer data.

In fact a recent eMarketer study shows that undetected malware and cloud-based security are still among the top security concerns for small businesses.
That’s why I’m delighted that the Virus Bulletin test singled out AVG CloudCare for its scanning and detection performance. It is a strong indicator that we design our product wholly with users in mind and are addressing their very real concerns.

smb issues

Here’s what Virus Bulletin had to say:

“Scanning was very fast indeed, even in the initial runs, and overheads were pretty light, barely detectable once files had been checked for the first time. Our set of activities ran through in good time, and resource use was low. Detection was very strong indeed with excellent scores throughout our sets, and with no issues to report in the WildList or clean sets, a VB100 award is well deserved, adding another good result to that strong score.”

 

Our customers are echoing this sentiment:

Thomas Keats of Rainbow Computers, a small business and AVG IT partner told us “I love so much about AVG CloudCare, it’s increasing the bottom line, increasing interaction with the customer on more than one level, keeping me and my shop more in their mind each step of the way.”

If you are a small business looking for a way to stay ahead of the security curve why not ask a local IT contractor about AVG CloudCare? Your company’s security would be one less thing to worry about!

Learn more about AVG CloudCare at: www.avg.com/cloudcare

Learn more about the Virus Bulletin 100 test at: https://www.virusbtn.com/virusbulletin/archive/2014/06/vb201406-comparative

AVG

AVG CloudCare scoops award in independent tests

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AVG CloudCare’s AntiVirus 2014 component has just received an award following its first ever participation in one of the industry’s top security comparison tests.  The latest Virus Bulletin  gave us a score of 91.2 out of a possible 100 in both Reactive and Proactive tests.

In an age where security breaches are common and a company trades more than ever on its reputation, small businesses simply cannot afford to take any chances when it comes to protecting their confidential or customer data.

In fact a recent eMarketer study shows that undetected malware and cloud-based security are still among the top security concerns for small businesses.

SMB Threats
That’s why I’m delighted that the Virus Bulletin test singled out AVG CloudCare for its scanning and detection performance. It is a strong indicator that we design our product wholly with users in mind and are addressing their very real concerns.

 

Here’s what Virus Bulletin had to say:

“Scanning was very fast indeed, even in the initial runs, and overheads were pretty light, barely detectable once files had been checked for the first time. Our set of activities ran through in good time, and resource use was low. Detection was very strong indeed with excellent scores throughout our sets, and with no issues to report in the WildList or clean sets, a VB100 award is well deserved, adding another good result to that strong score.”

 

Our customers are echoing this sentiment:

Thomas Keats of Rainbow Computers, a small business and AVG IT partner told us   “I love so much about AVG CloudCare, it’s increasing the bottom line, increasing interaction with the customer on more than one level, keeping me and my shop more in their mind each step of the way.”

If you are a small business looking for a way to stay ahead of the security curve why not ask a local IT contractor about AVG CloudCare? Your company’s security would be one less thing to worry about!

Learn more about AVG CloudCare at: www.avg.com/cloudcare

Learn more about the Virus Bulletin 100 test at: https://www.virusbtn.com/virusbulletin/archive/2014/06/vb201406-comparative

AVG

Who Dares Wins in The Pitch, UK

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On Thursday 18th September more than 40 intrepid small business entrepreneurs  – including one  17 year-old – from around the UK assembled in Manchester for the Northern semi-final of The Pitch 2014, the small business competition that this year has AVG as its lead sponsor.   As with the first semi-final in London the event took the form of a Boot Camp during which the competition’s main sponsors provided a series of mentoring workshops designed to help the contestants hone their pitches as they bid to land a coveted place in the Live Final taking place in Bristol on 23rd October.

The AVG workshop – appropriately held in a room called ‘dare’ – centred on overcoming sales objections.  Adapted from the classic objection-rebuttal cycle training that AVG provides to IT partners our workshop was based on the premise that entrepreneurs are great at dreaming up ideas for new products and services but are less confident when it comes to dealing with negative responses to their sales proposition.

Led by Mike Byrne, the workshop taught one or two simple techniques for overcoming common sales objections. People were then split into pairs for a role-playing exercise where they had the chance to practice what they’d learnt.  This format seemed to work very well, never failing to break the ice and fully engage the participants.  This was reflected in the numerous pieces of positive feedback that we received – a good example being this tweet from RecruitPacks.

Then it was time for the main event.  Everyone was given just 90 seconds to step up in front of a room full of judges and rivals, pitch their business idea and make the case why they should be selected to go through to the live final. There was a hugely diverse range of start-ups to choose from.

As lead sponsor and one of the judges AVG has the very difficult task choosing between such a high calibre of entries. Of course, AVG is always interested in eye-catching new ideas – especially in tech -Very occasionally, we take more than a passing interest as the recent acquisition of mobile monetization start-up Location Labs demonstrates.  If you would like to read more on this why not check out Mike Foreman’s recent interview with BusinessZone, published this week, where he talks more about what companies like AVG look for when weighing up prospective acquisitions and what entrepreneurs can expect.

The Boot Camp had a whole spectrum of businesses: everything from e-book stores and games for teaching numeracy; radon detectives and crime scene cleaners ; Twitter-driven advertising concepts and nano technology; and many more besides.  However in one thing Manchester was united. They all shared the same courage and determination. A willingness to push themselves well beyond their personal comfort zones in pursuit of making their business dreams come true.

For some the experience was plainly quite traumatic.  But in conquering their nerves they won the sympathy and support of the whole room.  A place in the live final awaits 30 of the top semi-finalists and a chance to present their pitch to a live audience, a panel of judges that will include Judy Bitterli, as well as investors and supporters.

One final word on Manchester to end on.  There cannot be many other business contests where people who are technically in fierce competition do so much bonding with their peers and provide so much emotional support for each other.  As Dan Martin editor of BusinessZone put it, “There was a lot of love in the room!”

AVG

Entrepreneurs set high standard at The Pitch, UK

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Thursday September 4th , 50 budding small businesses and entrepreneurs from around the UK gathered in London to attend Southern leg of The Pitch boot-camp.

The UK’s largest small businesses competition has reached the midway stage and contestants gathered to receive further mentoring and training from industry experts, including AVG at the 15 Hatfields events venue in London.

Click here for our full gallery

The boot camp was broken down into four separate sessions:

Marketing:

This session was led by Jeffrey Ferrazzo from Constant Contact and focussed on some of the most effective strategies that emerging businesses can use to maximise their limited marketing budget. As you might expect, there was a heavy focus on winning social media strategies and how to define a brand and drive engagement in what is a very crowded environment.

Pitch (24)

 

Overcoming objections:

At some stage in its development, every business will encounter roadblocks and objections from potential clients. This lively workshop session, led by Mike Byrne from AVG, prepared each contestant with techniques for mitigating and overcoming common objections to their product or service during the sales process.

Pitch (36)

 

Financial Planning:

You can have the best product in the world but without the proper financial planning, your business may still struggle to turn a profit. A group of helpful tutors from the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW), also sponsors, were on hand in this session to help the contestants set up clear and sustainable financial numbers to back up their business plans.

Pitch (40)

 

Pitching and Presentation:

Pitching and being able to sell your business idea in as short a time as possible can often make the difference between getting investment or sales and falling short. Contestants at this year’s The Pitch were given mentoring and individual feedback from one of the leading pitch experts in the UK, Annette Kramer.

Pitch (47)

 

 

The Pitching:

After a busy day of thorough training and preparation, all 50 competitors had only 90 seconds to pitch their business, on camera, to the rest of the attendees. The business ideas were as varied as the competitors themselves and there were excellent pitches for everything from lifesaving medical equipment to artisan marshmallows to workplace pension brokers.

Click here for our full gallery

The next phase:

The next step of The Pitch will be the Northern leg of the boot-camp to be held in Manchester later in September. After both boot camps have taken place, the video pitches will be narrowed down from 100 to 30 applicants to proceed to the final where a winner will be chosen by a panel of judges including AVG’s own Judith Bitterli.

The overall winner of The Pitch will win a priceless prize package that includes expert mentoring from business leaders and free access to world leading products and services including free AVG CloudCare services for two years.

 

AVG

AVG to lead innovation sessions at The Pitch, London

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This Thursday 4th September in London, AVG will be attending the first of two small business boot-camps as part of The Pitch, UK. Now in its seventh year The Pitch is one of the UK’s longest running small business competitions and awards thousands of pounds worth of prizes to innovative startups.

The boot camps will be attended by 100 small businesses that made it through the first stage of the competition. These are split into two regional groups, North and South, who will attend boot camps in Manchester (on 18th September) and this week in London where after an intense day of mentoring their pitching prowess will be assessed.

As a main sponsor for The Pitch, AVG is delighted to attend these boot camp sessions and will be working directly with the competitors in one of the hands-on sessions. The boot camps will focus on the four key pillars of pitching:

  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Business model innovation
  • Pitching

AVG’s Director of Partner Enablement Mike Byrne will be leading the Business Model Innovation session aimed to provide candidates with some useful ideas about how to optimise their business models and sharpen their sales techniques using technology. Whether it’s managing relationships, assessing the competition, reducing sales cycle time/costs or simply making life easier, technology has a lot offer business sales activities.

AVG’s philosophy is all about empowering small businesses to manage their technology simply and reliably so they can stop worrying about their data and concentrate on growth in today’s fast changing, increasingly mobile workplace.

After the boot camps, the competitors will be narrowed down from 100 to 30 applicants to proceed to the final where a winner will be chosen by a panel of judges including AVG’s own Judith Bitterli.

 

The overall winner of The Pitch will win a priceless prize package that includes expert mentoring from business leaders and free access to world leading products and services including free AVG CloudCare services for two years.

AVG

Microsoft Office 365 service module offers MSPs the best of both worlds

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Life for a managed services provider (MSP) is seldom straightforward.   Support staff in the service center have long had to juggle between screens as they log in and out of numerous applications from different vendors in the course of their day-to-day remote management operations. Over the years advances in technology have created ever more diverse technical environments for them to manage.  Nowadays it’s commonplace for customers to have a mix of traditional on-premise IT along with mobile devices and the latest cloud-based applications. The number of management screens just keeps on multiplying – all the while pushing up the time and costs of administration.

The Microsoft® Office 365™ cloud-based collaboration, communications and productivity software platform is a good example.  Its combination of Exchange e-mail, SharePoint online, Lync VoIP and conferencing online, web hosting via SharePoint and the Office Web Apps has proved extremely popular with businesses of all sizes. Indeed Microsoft’s own executives have described it as the fastest growing business in its history. Little surprise, then, that it has also gained a strong channel following with more than 60 percent of top MSPs seeking to wrap their services around one of the market’s current best sellers.

Yet managing this along with a multitude of other applications is no picnic.  Our MSP partners have been telling us that they would like a more convenient way to administer hybrid physical and online environments so that they can add value for customers with the Office 365 cloud platform.  In view of the large numbers of MSPs using Office 365, developing a solution to help our customers support and obtain recurring revenue streams from supporting Office 365 with ease and simplicity has been a priority.

The Microsoft Office 365 service module for AVG Managed Workplace®, just released, goes some way towards addressing this issue. It allows our channel partners to provide management services such as user password resets and mailbox policies – which Microsoft typically will not do – via a single screen through AVG Managed Workplace. In fact the module allows MSPs to remotely perform five of the most popular management tasks. Apart from the two already mentioned you can also set license expiration alerts, receive service down notifications and managing users without using Windows PowerShell®. Other administrative tasks can be accessed without any additional logins.

Allowing administrators to view all the essential information they need about cloud-based and on-premise applications together within the same screen in this way gives IT services providers the best of both worlds.  In so doing it neatly solves problem of multiple logins for partners and helps them to run their operations more efficiently.

Our simplification of Office 365 management for services providers is a clear demonstration of our commitment to our channel partners.  We will continue to add modules to AVG Managed Workplace that allow IT service providers reap productivity benefits and deliver long-term value to their customers.

In summary, the Office 365 service module represents a first step in developing easy ways to manage cloud data within AVG Managed Workplace – something that appears destined to become commonplace as more everyday objects and devices are IP-connected to form the Internet of Things. It also further enhances the wide range of productivity benefits already available to MSPs who use AVG Managed Workplace to remotely manage the IT of their entire customer-base through the same, single pane of glass.