Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
Alex Ruslyakov - The Acronis Approach to MSP Enablement
Live from Pax8 Beyond with Acronis Alex Ruslyakov on AI, Trust, and the Future of MSP Growth
In this dynamic live episode, we reconnect with Alex Ruslyakov, Chief Channel Officer at Acronis, to explore how AI is reshaping the MSP landscape and why trust and integration still reign supreme in the partner ecosystem.
Filmed on-site at Pax8 Beyond in Denver, Alex shares his front-row perspective on the AI-agentic revolution, where digital labor transforms MSP productivity and enables smaller teams to scale like enterprises. We dive into Acronis’s strategy of embedding AI not just into products, but into the platform itself, allowing partners to orchestrate services, enhance upsell potential, and cut operational friction down to four clicks.
In this episode, we explore:
- Why AI isn’t just about efficiency, but a catalyst for market capture in the channel
- How Acronis is building co-pilots and integration layers to power real-world MSP automation
- What it takes to balance scalable digital experiences with the irreplaceable value of human trust
From product design to partner programs, this episode is packed with actionable insights for channel leaders who want to stay ahead in a fast-evolving landscape.
Connect with Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-ruslyakov/
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Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about partnerships, and channel on a weekly basis. My name is Alex Whitford, I'm the VP of Revenue here at Chanext and this week I'm very excited to welcome our special guest. Also, alex, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:Doing all right. Thank you, Alex. How are you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, welcome back to the podcast. Excited to have you back on.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Likewise Excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a nice one because, well, this time we get to do it face-to-face, but we also get to do it at PAX 8 Beyond, where it's been a real interesting day full of lots of discussion around where the market's headed, how products are changing, how go-to-market's changing.
Speaker 1:What's been a highlight from today that's really stood out for you?
Speaker 1:Well, the major highlight was the keynote by the ceo of backseat, scott chasen, and he was talking about, uh, the agentic orchestration, the ai agentic orchestration that is coming up as a trend uh in the nearest future and the the essence of it is that, uh, moving into the future, msps will optimize and they will engage so-called digital labor orchestrating the workloads, the tasks around these workloads, helping humans to, basically, where AI is helping humans to cope with these tasks, and that will enable a boost in the productivity of the MSPs and enable them to scale way faster.
Speaker 1:And the fact that platforms need to be ready for that. Vendors need to be ready for that. And this is where we, as Acronis is definitely heading to, where we're trying to be ahead of the curve and already embed not just embed AI, because ask any vendor, they will tell you that they're embedding AI tools into their products. But, more specifically, we're looking to introduce a co-pilot that will help manage the platform, not just the product, because we're more than a product, we're a stack of integrated services, a co-pilot that will help MSPs manage the services and be able to essentially get down to managing more workloads per headcount, per engineer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sort of fascinated by the unit economics of how MSPs work and it seems that what AI is going to allow MSPs particularly to do is to service a lot more customers with the same size team drives up profitability and then they can sort of reallocate that resource into more sales and marketing efforts to help that flywheel scale. That's something traditionally MSPs have been somewhat find challenging to build that sort of revenue engine. How do you feel AI is going to help support those businesses in terms of also from a sales and marketing perspective? Do you see improvements there?
Speaker 1:So I'll take an angle on that. And just today, I've been speaking with one of our MSPs and I'm asking what is your biggest upcoming opportunity? And he told me that the opportunity is to secure different clients in their usage of the AI. And he said, like, if the client is using ChatGPD free version, maybe and are exposing their corporate data to ChatGPD, uploading files into ChatGPD, well, guess what? They're making their internal corporate data available to millions of users on the platform. Moreover, they're sharing this data with a third party.
Speaker 1:So being in control of that, being able to orchestrate the usage of AI tools within a company, is the next big challenge, which not every company is able to deal with today, and this is an opportunity for the MSPs where they can bring in their expertise. Well, first, they need to build this expertise, because it's still a new topic for a lot of MSPs and a lot of these MSPs are lifestyle businesses or lifetime businesses for people, and it takes it takes an effort to to adjust, it takes an effort to embrace this new world, and this new world is approaching so fast that I mean, if you, if you're not able to, it's unlikely that you'll survive as an MSP provider.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the thing that I'm sort of fascinated when it comes to MSPs or the channel, I suppose, in general when it comes to AI, is I think we've got a real reason to be sort of bullish in this market, because it's really hard for an end user to just implement AI, and they are implementing AI from the knowledge that they can find, whereas what the MSP is uniquely positioned to do if I sell to legal practices, I build an AI agentic workflow for a legal practice, but then I can take that learning and apply it to the next legal practice and to the next legal practice and you get this scaling flywheel. Do you see that AI is going to actually lead to even more growth within the msp stage, not just a productivity improvement, but actually more market capture?
Speaker 1:well there are. I think the opinions are split there whether ai is going to take away the part of the business of an msp, because companies will be able to manage something without a third company, just leveraging the AI. On the other hand, just leveraging the AI and getting your head around the AI, all the capabilities and all the security risks and all the exposure, is a challenge by itself. So this is where MSPs can come in and help with that. So I think it's going to be both and it's going to move in both directions and case by case, both things will happen. But what it adds for sure?
Speaker 1:It adds complexity, because in this world there is so much going through the people's heads world, there is so much going through the people's heads, there's so much there's there's so much innovation going through people's heads that it's just difficult for a mere human to get your hand around all this innovation that's coming up so quickly, so rapidly, and there's so many new services that are coming up, and you realize that you can leverage all that and there is a a syndrome of uh missing out the opportunity, the FOMO syndrome that more and more people get exposed for, exposed to, and when you have a reliable partner. So, essentially, what I believe it will come down to is finding a reliable partner who will help you navigate the complexity of the contemporary world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the thing about this sort of huge market change is it's either an opportunity or a threat, and it sort of doesn't matter which one. You believe you're going to be correct. I see a lot of people who are very sort of negatively skewed Me. I'm forever an optimist and I think the partners that really lean in and attack this as a real opportunity to go and capture more customers, provide more value. Ultimately, they're the ones that I lean in and attack this as a real opportunity to go and capture more customers, provide more value. Ultimately, they're the ones that I think will grow. What would be your advice to MSPs who are maybe struggling to lean in or don't quite know how to approach this sort of radical change?
Speaker 1:Well, the first and foremost advice obviously is to embrace the knowledge that is available. Try to get as much educated about the topic as you can. Second, talk to your peers. Talk to someone who is already embracing this aspect of the IT world. Talk to someone who can help you find your way, find your niche. And third, leverage the ecosystem, Because you're not alone. You're working with distributors like Pax8. You're working with vendors like Acronis, who collect a lot of knowledge, who can see other cases of other partners, of other MSPs going through this challenge, who already learned someone else's errors and can share the experience and can basically help you in this journey.
Speaker 2:You touched on also. We speak a lot on this podcast about program personnel and product. I think AI is going to have a real value add increase into how you drive product improvements. You spoke about your platform play. Can you take us through in detail what's the strategy behind implementing AI into your product?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, first of all, the way we look at giving our partners a competitive edge is by providing that platform with a stack of integrated services where they can minimize their operational footprint, reduce their operational effort, by just having a single agent with all the different capabilities of data protection, data security, data management, data monitoring. When you can do it with a single deployed agent, first you can optimize your operational costs, but second, you gain a huge advantage of leveraging the upselling, cross-sell capabilities, where you already have the agent on the system and you can just check a box and enable a new capability of the agent and that way you upsell the service without the hassle of deploying anything new, updating the existing one or doing any of this kind of activities. So that gives you a commercial advantage of lowering your costs down and improving your efficiency and ability to cover more workloads per technician. So the AI scales that even further, giving you even more power in terms of the number of workloads that you can manage as an MSP. And guess what? Msps having 3, 5, 10 people on board can now compete with a much bigger company in terms of the workloads, terms of the work clothes they can cover, and that that ability itself gives the partner a competitive edge and ability to scale very rapidly. The only question is whether or not the partner is able to utilize this ability quickly and be ahead of the majority of others to do that.
Speaker 1:Our job as a vendor is to provide the tools and educate. So we're building the tools into the platform. We're building the AI tools into the platform. We're building the integration tools into the platform so that they can integrate our platform with any other platform in the market.
Speaker 1:And I've been just talking to one of the guys who was explaining the benefits of having a single pane of glass, and I was referring to that. Not every MSP wants a single pane of glass. Many MSPs consider it as a potential threat or risk having all your eggs in one basket, so they want to use different tools and our answer to that is we give you integration capabilities. If you want to use different tools for your MSP practice, you want to use different RMM or you want to use a different PSA system, there is your integration capabilities. So pick and choose what you want to use, but then having that AI agent embedded into the platform that allows you to orchestrate and manage your day-to-day tasks, and being able to integrate that AI agent into your existing other platforms, and being able to establish the communication between the different AI agents that you have is going to be the key to success and the way for partners to optimize their workload and to cover more with less.
Speaker 2:I think the thing in there there's sort of two key points. Right, you're improving the unit economics for running an MSP because suddenly, hey, if I can have three times as many customers with the same size team, the profitability goes through the roof. But on top of that it's also quality of service. Right, because the ability to very easily upsell and cross-sell very quickly and efficiently. Talk to me about what that does for loyalty, both at an MSP level but a customer level, having that high quality of service.
Speaker 1:Well, definitely, having a high quality of service is a key aspect of building trust with a partner. Partnership is always a two-way street, and if you're giving the right tools but also giving the right attitude to your partner, that is something that you get in exchange from a partner, and that is where your partner is more willing to scale with you rather than with someone else, and that is where your partner is more willing to scale with you rather than with someone else. So it's an absolute necessity to have and build this trust. But then, after building the trust relationship, there has to be something on top of that, something that you can put into your pocket or your partner can put into their pocket, that enables the commercial interest to scale further. And this is where we bring in our partner program into play. This is where we bring the programmatic incentives to our partners to make it not only a trusted relationship but also make it a commercially interesting journey where they can leverage the benefits that we provide within the platform in exchange to their I won't call it even loyalty, but their engagement level with us as a partner.
Speaker 1:So oftentimes the challenge is to get through the wall to establish this trusted relationship, to just initiate that trusted relationship with a partner and oftentimes bringing the commercial incentive helps.
Speaker 1:And this is not because partners don't want to talk to you. This is because partners just don't have enough time to give you the attention that you ask for, because they deal with multiple vendors and they deal with multiple priorities, multiple clients and multiple issues of multiple clients and that's a huge burden. And obviously every vendor is knocking on the door of every MSP with their offerings and MSP just doesn't have enough bandwidth to talk to every vendor. So this is where our approach is. We come in and say, hey, there are certain commercial benefits that you can leverage in the program. They're very substantial. So just look at those and see for yourself whether it's worth investing 15 minutes a week to gain 15% worth of discount or rebate as part of the program. And then it becomes a whole different conversation, like, okay, if it works that way, maybe it's worth allocating some time and work with the vendor more closely and start building that relationship and start building that trust.
Speaker 2:You talk about trust and I'm sort of fascinated in sort of how these two theories coexist, where you guys have built an incredibly scalable, frictionless digital operation. And yet last time we spoke, when you came on the podcast, you shared how you were able to build such a huge amount of trust by taking partners to sporting events and leveraging that. And now we're sat here, denver, with two and a half thousand msps. How does trust change when we have the opportunity to really sit down in events like this, face to face, and have real conversations?
Speaker 1:face-to-face conversations are really. I mean, they they help open doors, and events like that, when you can set up meetings with partners and prospects which you haven't seen in a while or you haven't seen at all, it definitely helps to either re-engage or start engaging, because this is what these events are meant for. And I mean, we're still humans, despite all the AI thing and all these things. We're still emotional, we still look at each other. When we look at each other, we have certain feelings. We still look at each other. We still, when we look at each other, we have certain feelings, sometimes warm, sometimes cold, sometimes fuzzy feelings that that we have and we need it as as human beings. So, uh, despite all the digital revolution, this face-to-face aspect is still super important and it's uh, it's uh, it's a building block in that journey of building trust. Well, alex, I'm glad we got to record the second episode face-to-face.
Speaker 2:I hope someday we'll get important and it's a building block in that journey of building trust. Well, alex, I'm glad we got to record the second episode face-to-face. I hope someday we'll get to do the third one face-to-face as well. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. It's been awesome.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, Alex. Thanks for having me.