Top MSP Regions Around the World

If I were asked (and believe me I am) to list the hot managed services zones around the world it might look something like this. Keep in mind, this list is always subject to anomalies and outliers and is my own view of the market. To be more precise, I might actually categorize the following regions in two ways: first, their existing maturity and capability to deliver managed services, and second, the region's capacity to advance and in some way control the advancement of the managed services profession in that geographic area. We might call the first characteristic the maturity level and the second future capacity.

North America - clearly this is the oldest and most developed region on the planet when it comes to managed services adoption. Starting at the large enterprise, filtering down through the mid-market and now firmly embedded in the SMB (small and medium business market) the managed services community in N/A is well established.

The N/A MSP market, however, is struggling today due to a number of factors. First, the economy has caused an abundance of small startups all trying to brand themselves as MSPs. While this is a positive attribute of the N/A market it does have the potential to create dilution, especially when so few of the MSPs starting up do not abide by "best practices". This lack of best practices adoption may be caused by the refusal of smaller MSPs to ask for help from other MSPs and learn from the more mature providers.

A second factor affecting the N/A marketplace is the general economic, tax, and regulatory pressures being placed on MSPs as businesses. The same regulatory, tax, and lack of funding pressures that drive end-users towards managed services can also have a similar negative impact on the MSPs themselves.

Western Europe - Outside of N/A Western Europe, particularly the UK, Ireland, France Germany and Benelux, have long been mature areas for managed services. Owing to their strong broadband and telephony foundation, this region has produced some very strong MSPs over the years and has a good track record of marketing and selling managed services.

Recently, countries like Ireland and the UK have been relatively hard hit by the global financial crisis and are currently trying to rebuild their businesses. Other countries, like France and Germany, seem to be doing much better than other Western European countries.

Middle East - While this region has traditionally been quiet and uninvolved, certain countries (particularly United Arab Emirates) have emerged as high growth area areas for managed services companies. Perhaps due to the oil and gas industry or maybe as a result of the quick build out of other fundamental services throughout the region, MSP businesses are even now being created or are emerging from larger (mid-market and above) system integrators and VARs who are eager to adopt a managed services line of business.