Own the data, own the customer

N-able is touting its MSP automation platform as a way for resellers to up- and cross-sell – and a lite version offered free to resellers is proving a boon to the company and its resellers, the company tells The Channel.

Resellers leveraging a free offering from N-able have seen the company more than triple the number of customers managed in the past two yearsw.

N-able has made available more than five million licenses for the lite version of its N-Central remote network monitoring software in the past two years and Gavin Garbutt, N-able founder and chief executive, says that offering has seen its community of partners worldwide grow their managed services customer base from 20,000 to 61,000 SMBs during the two year period.

Ottawa-based Garbutt, who was in Australia recently for the annual N-able Partner Summit where the company launched N-central 8.2 which includes fully integrated backup and disaster recovery, says resellers can use the free lite version to leverage their own prospects and up-sell.

“Using this they can show where there are problems [on the customer’s network] such as back-ups not happening, and then up-sell and cross-sell services based on that. You [the reseller] have the data – and can report back to the customer as to where they have problems and provide value-add services.

“Whoever owns the data, owns the customer,” says Garbutt, who founded N-able in 2000.

Beating the Aussies

He says Kiwi resellers have been quick to see the benefit of the free offering – with New Zealand uptake double that of our Australian counterparts – though he was coy about exact figures.

N-able has 24 partners in New Zealand, after clocking up a 40% increase in its Australian and New Zealand MSP partner base in 2011. Worldwide the company has 2400 partners.

Garbutt says N-able expanded its business beyond North America three years ago and international markets now account for ‘a significant percentage of our partner base’.

“We’re excited about the adoption rate of N-able within these markets and have set an aggressive growth strategy for 2012 that will further extend our leadership internationally and enable us to create and deliver a greater service advantage to our partners worldwide,” he says.

However, he says the company’s New Zealand focus is now on investing more in existing partners to help them become more successful. “We want to help them seriously improve their managed services business.

“We’re really pleased with our partners in New Zealand and really pleased to see the way they have leveraged N-central to enhance the productivity, efficiency and value delivered to their customers.”

The company also has a managed service provider technicians ‘run-book’ – providing best practice advice from more than 2400 MSPs – on offer.