Talking Technology…… with Robinder Koura, Head of Partner Sales – EMEA at GoTo

GoTo provide software, including GoTo Resolve, Rescue, and GoTo Connect, for IT management, support, and business communications.

What is new in the GoTo offerings to MSPs for 2024 onwards?

• We continue to expand our Managed Service Providers (MSPs) offerings to make their client’s experience frictionless, secure, easy, and affordable with GoTo’s IT management and support software, including GoTo Resolve and Rescue. Ultimately, we want to make secure IT simple for MSPs and increase the productivity of our partners by removing inefficiencies in the IT support process.
• In June 2023, GoTo expanded its capabilities to offer Mobile Device Management (MDM) software for GoTo Resolve, enabling mobile device management from a single, user-friendly portal.

What are your business highlights of the 12 months?

• Following our company’s rebrand from LogMeIn to GoTo, we launched the new GoTo Partner Network designed to empower our growing ecosystem of partners with additional ways to attract customers and increase revenue. Today, current and new partners can benefit from additional investments in marketing, new integrations, and support for multiple partner types (MSPs, Resellers, Distributors, sales agents and Technology Services Brokers). The program also included the rollout of a specialized Partner Concierge Program, which provides additional investment and resources to drive higher demand generation and sales for all partner organisations.
• The exciting part is taking our business transformation to our partners and explaining why they play such a big part in our mission. The last year has been about bringing to reality our new portfolio and our renewed focus on SMBs and Enterprise customers.
• In September 2022, we introduced the brand new GoTo Resolve for MSPs to make IT management and support fast, easy and secure.
• Another highlight would be the recent expansion of our IT offerings to include not only IT support but also a wide range of IT management functionality, including remote monitoring and management (RMM) features as well as mobile device management (MDM) capabilities.

Have you seen any downside to the UK business despite the economic outlook?

• “Doing more with less” is the modus operandi for most UK businesses I have been speaking to. Given the economic pressures on small businesses, and the growing number of flexible workforces, there is a huge demand for managed services in the UK. Working with tighter budgetary restraints means companies are looking to work smarter by consolidating their technology stack and finding ways to be more efficient with their IT resources. Simplicity is key to success in this economic climate, and we recognised the need to make access to our solutions easier and affordable for our partners.

Why should MSPs be considering switching or using the GoTo platforms above others, what are your USPs?

• GoTo’s aim is to simplify IT management. There is a real need for keeping IT simple when we speak to our partners. Providing an all-in-one solution for remote IT management and monitoring addresses a large portion of our partners’ needs, including supporting disparate workforces, becoming more responsive to customer demands and freeing up resources to focus on more strategic IT planning.
• GoTo Resolve enables MSPs to meet the evolving needs of today’s SMBs with frictionless, fast, and flexible support, without the hefty price tag. The solution provides MSP-specific account administration and reporting features, GoTo’s best-in-class remote support tools to easily support and troubleshoot clients’ IT assets. GoTo Resolve for MSPs is also backed up by a first-of-its-kind zero trust security architecture within an RMM solution, helping to safeguard MSPs and their customers from increasingly prevalent and devastating software supply chain attacks.
• GoTo also offers Rescue for MSPs for best-in-class, enterprise-grade remote IT support with advanced security, seamless resolutions, and extensive integrations.

What should IT managers be looking to do differently in the coming 12 months?

• IT managers should be agile and adaptive to handle any planned or unplanned disruption coming their way. Staying flexible means IT managers should be able to support their employee’s IT needs from anywhere, across any device.
• A recent GoTo survey found that 65% of SMBs feel the workload of their IT teams has increased, and 92% say that reducing this burden is mission-critical. This was the driving force behind GoTo’s recent innovation of GoTo Resolve, announcing a new suite of remote monitoring and management (RMM) and mobile device management (MDM) features laying the foundation for GoTo’s evolution towards a full IT service management (ITSM) solution. These features streamline workloads and resolve IT challenges in a unified solution and expand access to IT management across all devices.

Have you any thoughts on how AI will impact MSPs daily operations?

• Only time will tell on AI’s true impact for MSPs as we’re still in the early stages of Large Language Models (LLM) and Generative AI adoption. I am optimistic about AI’s potential for MSPs and for businesses. However, the success of AI is tied to the success of the human workforce.
• The human touch is where MSPs will continue to add value for their clients as trust in AI remains relatively low. As smart as AI is, it still needs human expertise to install, deploy, and oversee it. Poor implementation leads to a bad customer experience, which then ends up having a negative impact on the brand.

What are your current IT predications?

• Aside from unlocking the full potential of AI for businesses, we conducted a study of small and medium-sized businesses to understand their priorities and pressures this year. The key findings were heavily influenced by businesses’ macroeconomic uncertainties. The majority of businesses are consolidating tools, with 83% considering consolidation of communication and IT management and support tools an important initiative for 2023. This consolidation ultimately helps to alleviate the burden on IT talent and resources, a goal of 92% of respondents.

What currently is having the greatest impact on your business? (or how you are doing business)

• Employers are listening to the needs of their workforce when it comes to flexible working. We’ve seen a 10% decrease in businesses setting official rules regarding how many days staff should be in the office per week. Working in a hybrid way has had a positive impact on how we interact with our colleagues, partners, and customers. This new way of working has empowered employees to be more efficient and effective when it comes to choosing how they collaborate, whether it be planning, status check-ins, team all-hands or new business engagements, and has made it essential that businesses are able to provide IT support from within or outside a traditional office space.

Where do you see the next big opportunity for MSPs ?

• The partner ecosystem is very much alive today thanks to the rapid advances in the technology trialled and deployed by businesses. According to our recent IT Priorities survey, partners still play a vital role in IT decision-making with a 55% increase in the usage of partners over the past year by small and medium-sized businesses. As businesses seek to do more with less, IT consolidation is one of the biggest opportunities for MSPs to help their clients determine the appropriate IT strategy and which technologies fit into the strategic stack.

What should all IT managers be considering implementing in the next 12 months ?

• There are two areas IT managers should consider. Firstly, against the background of corporate IT consolidation, IT managers should proactively look at ways to make their IT stack more efficient by conducting an audit on usage and user experience. Second, as we operate in a world where IT skills are scarce and often at a premium too high for small and medium-sized businesses to cover, is to look at the partner community for expert advice.

…..Talking about you 

What’s the best bit of advice that you’ve ever been given?

Always treat people the way you would like to be treated. Summarises the general advice my father always used to give me.

Have you ever had any embarrassing moments at work ?

A few years back I was presenting at a sales conference in front of a large audience, and as I walked on stage, I accidently knocked the host off the back of the stage when I turned around after she handed me the microphone!

What is your favourite quote and why ?

“Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius. This quote really resonates with me, especially in recent years where life seems to have gotten a bit more complex, frantic, and fractured.

What is currently top of your music playlist ?

Mainstays on my playlists are Bjork, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Goldfrapp, and Gorillaz, but I always try to explore different artists and genres. My daughters have recently got me into Turkish and Arabic music.

What would your dream job be?

Travel blogger/reviewer or top 10 PGA golfer

Andriod or Apple ? 

Apple

What was the last app you downloaded on your phone and why  ?

Magzter – app that allows you to access lots of different newspapers and magazines. Great for flights and travel.

How do you like to spend your spare time and unwind ?

Just spending time with my family (wife and two daughters) when I can.  We love to travel a lot when possible or simply going to shows, exhibits and restaurants in London on the weekends. I’m trying also get back to reading books more and less staring at my phone!

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