What's Up with Tech?
Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!
With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!
What's Up with Tech?
Beyond Manual: The Future of Intelligent IT Management
Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com
The devices we rely on for productivity often become our biggest source of frustration. From patching nightmares to security vulnerabilities, managing technology creates endless headaches for IT teams—unless you've embraced automation.
Peter from NinjaOne takes us deep into the world of IT automation, revealing the stark reality of organizational maturity: some teams spend half their working hours on repetitive tasks while others have slashed this to just 10% through smart automation. This disparity doesn't just affect IT departments; it creates ripple effects throughout organizations, from security vulnerabilities to talent retention challenges and diminished productivity.
We explore how NinjaOne bridges the gap between security teams and IT operations—a critical intersection where vulnerabilities are identified but remediation often stalls. Their unified approach provides a common language and single-pane-of-glass visibility, transforming the traditional "throw it over the fence" model into collaborative workflows. The platform's AI-powered patch sentiment analysis exemplifies this approach, analyzing market feedback to identify problematic updates before deployment and preventing potential system crashes.
The conversation highlights how automation isn't about eliminating jobs but reallocating human talent to higher-value activities. One rapidly growing NinjaOne customer avoided hiring 17 additional IT staff during expansion by implementing automation, allowing them to invest in strategic initiatives instead. With customers achieving platform proficiency in just 7-9 days and full onboarding in under 30 days, NinjaOne demonstrates that powerful IT management doesn't require complexity.
Whether you're managing a heterogeneous environment across multiple clients or struggling with security compliance in a distributed workforce, this episode reveals how automation can transform your approach to endpoint management. Listen now to discover how to shift from drowning in repetitive tasks to driving strategic value through intelligent IT automation.
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel
Hey everybody, Fascinating chat today as we talk about automating the hardest parts of IT with Ninja One. Peter, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm great Thanks, Evan. Really appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1:Well, appreciate you being here, Really intrigued by Ninja One as a leader in IT management. Before we dive in, maybe talk about yourself, your role at Ninja One and the evolution of NinjaOne, the journey you've been on for a number of years now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we really like to say that we help automate the hardest parts of IT, and a lot of that is really around supporting the devices that help businesses run and supporting the users that use those devices. There's no need for technology for technology's sake. Devices and technology and applications are all part of business, enablement making sure that people have the tools and technologies they need to be efficient and effective and secure, and we help automate the management of all of that. And that's why we have grown the way we have and why we are excited to be in this market.
Speaker 2:Because if you think about your day-to-day, I don't know about you but for me I'm on devices from when I wake up in the morning till when I go to bed at night, much to, maybe, my own chagrin, but they're so important in our day-to-day life and how we do business. They're huge enablers but they also take a lot of work. You know, no device really runs by itself and does everything it needs to. Often devices can be a friction point in environments rather than the enablers we want them to be, and it's Ninja's job to give IT teams the tools that they need to remove that friction, make sure devices are secure and running and enabling people to do their job and ultimately, you know, make businesses more efficient and effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really well said. And those requirements and needs are evolving and changing so quickly. How do you think about addressing IT challenges? You know what are some of the top. You know challenges you start with when it comes to organizations and their day-to-day issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I talk to IT leaders, I see like a very wide spectrum of maturity, particularly when it comes to endpoint management. You have some organizations that you know the people who are assigned to end user computing and endpoint management are spending anywhere as high as 50% of their time on these row, repetitive tasks. And then you have others who are way down at like the 10 to 12% right. That's a huge level of maturity and obviously different organizations and different users have different needs. But that shows the disparity in maturity of IT teams and their ability to manage endpoints. The ones that are at that 50% mark and I'm sure there are some that are worse, many that are better, but at that 50% of their time mark those are people and organizations that haven't embraced automation, haven't embraced tools that actually become enablers of efficiency, who don't have solutions fit for purpose for today's modern distributed environment. And then you look at those that are at you know that 10, 12% and you know you have the opposite right Tools, fit for purpose, deep engagement with automation, you know, starting to use AI to approach autonomy around endpoint management, and that disparity causes real business outcomes. If you look at those in the worst shape, there are security issues around it. There are friction points with end users. There are challenges keeping and retaining talent, both on the end user side but also on the IT side, because the end users are frustrated with their technology experience. It is frustrated that they're spending all their time on these repetitive tasks that have been solved by technology. And so you have, you know, that level of business impact with the hiring side.
Speaker 2:Security, obviously, I mentioned. You know, if you're not remediating vulnerabilities fast enough, if you don't have a patch strategy that works, you're opening yourselves up for challenges on the security side and then ultimately, sort of at a more fundamental level, if the technology experience isn't great, if you don't have the applications you need, if you're experiencing degradation and performance on the endpoint, that's impacting your experience. Ultimately you can't get your job done. If you're working at 70% efficiency because you're spending hours a day as an end user on technology issues, you're just not able to get your job done. If you're working at 70% efficiency, because you're spending hours a day as an end user on technology issues, you're just not able to get your job done and that really impacts the business.
Speaker 1:Wow, there's so much to unpack there. Let's start with a few things you said Automation and IT operations. Yes, many of us have been there. It can be a mind-numbing and soul-destroying job when it comes to provisioning and setup of endpoints. So how do you specifically automate those capabilities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I look at the things that really drive time on endpoint management, there's a common set of culprits right, it's device onboarding and offboarding, it's patching, it's endpoint configuration. It culprits right, it's device onboarding and offboarding, it's patching, it's endpoint configuration, it's device maintenance, software deployment. It's the things that are actually most ripe for automation, right, but that's really a level one set of automations. If you can automate those things, and you often can, that's sort of level one, and then you can move into a level two and a level three where you're talking about, you know, large scale, complex automations that even you know a level of autonomy around endpoint automation.
Speaker 2:That said, a lot of people don't have the tools fit for purpose for automating even those, those level one automations, and so, really, you know. So, looking at a mature versus non-mature organization, it's about building a culture that embraces and leans into automation. But that requires, you know, a culture of people who are not not scared to lose their job because they're automating some of these repetitive tasks. It requires a culture where leadership is investing in automation and supporting it and celebrating it. That's really critical. It requires processes in place to identify the low-hanging fruit to automate and then wrapping that all together into people, tools and processes to support it. So I think that's really the starting point, and a lot of companies aren't quite there yet, and I think that fear piece is really important. I don't want to automate something that I do every day, because then what am I going to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great insight and I love that you have a unique approach to the managed service provider marketplace. Increasingly, where customers are going for, you know, security and other support. What are some of the unique requirements you see from MSPs and how do you tailor the platform to those kind of needs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciate that question because managed service providers are where we got our start and you know where the core of the platform really really built from and what I'll say you know, having worked in both the MSP space and the large enterprise spaces. In some ways, msps have, you know, as complex, if not more complex, requirements than many large enterprises. In some ways, msps have as complex, if not more complex, requirements than many large enterprises, largely because they have to deliver best-in-class services incredibly efficiently or they won't survive. You can't be an MSP supporting 10, 15, 20, 100 clients and do things inefficiently and manually. It just doesn't work. They also have to work in the most heterogeneous environments, right? If you look at the trend over the last I don't know 10, 15 years, the number and heterogeneity of devices that need to be managed and supported has exploded. You know I have three or four devices in front of me right now and you know none of them are the same or can be managed the same way, and your average employee has about four devices that they are accessing.
Speaker 2:you know critical business data from right. And so MSPs, they have to support that in highly differentiated environments it could be, you know, a law firm over here in a small physician's office over here, right and those have very different needs, very different requirements, different compliance needs. And so you know we have to build for this incredible complexity for MSPs and that's actually set us up really well for success in the, you know, small and even to large enterprise market where they're dealing with that complexity, but in these comparatively more homogenous environments because they control the hardware and software procurement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, super important. Let's turn to security and compliance. We have RSAC coming up in just a few weeks. This will be top of mind to many of us these days. And how do you think about secure, robust security compliance across so many different style of endpoints and manufacturers and there's so many risks there? What's the sort of Ninja One philosophy when it comes to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think there's a stat that really highlights our stance, and it's that 80 percent of IT ops professionals, who are our primary buyers, have direct security responsibilities. And this is this isn't new, this is this isn't going to blow any minds, but it's so critical because, if you think about kind of three categories there's stuff IT owns and executes on. There's stuff that security owns and IT executes on, and then stuff security owns and executes on right, the IT owns and executes. That's a well-defined, understood market where there's lots of solutions, including Ninja. There's the security market that security owns and runs. That's a well-defined, understood market that is well-solutioned. But ultimately we see a gap in the market where there is that huge component of activities that security owns but IT acts on and there's unmet need there in the market that we're helping solve.
Speaker 2:But there's also a really important change in how organizations think and run that needs to happen there.
Speaker 2:It can no longer be, for example, security identifying vulnerabilities, opening a ticket, tossing it over the fence and saying go fix this, and then IT fixing it and not being able to prove it, or having to make decisions about security and end user impact and balance those things, but still getting yelled at by security right.
Speaker 2:So the way Ninja really thinks about this is we want to unify these workflows and have a common language and a common single pane of glass for these two teams and workflows to work together.
Speaker 2:A really good example of this is being able to ingest vulnerability data into the Ninja One platform, push it up against Ninja One devices managed devices so that we can patch them more effectively, identify those critical vulnerabilities that need to happen now, take a risk-based approach to patching, but also prove it back to the security team. Ultimately, being able to have that unified vision of vulnerabilities and remediations and then being able to have a, you know, a positive conversation as a team about the impact and the speed at which to remediate these vulnerabilities and the outcomes of the work that IT is doing is a great example of that unification. And really all of those things that security owns and IT is executing on need to move into that environment where they do have a common understanding without, you know, sacrificing the requirements of security, for example, to own that tool and be able to have their own source of truth.
Speaker 1:Oh, really well said. So I came up in a world of you know text and command line interfaces working at Oracle and Intel and other places, and the world has changed and you're really leading the pack. You're known for a really great UI, ux and ease of use when onboarding new clients. How does that work exactly and what can you expect in terms of turning on NinjaOne?
Speaker 2:So this is an area of the market that, as you said, I think we really excel at and we focus so heavily here, because, if you go and think about what an IT executive really cares about, it's making sure that they have a return on their IT investment making sure that they have fast time to value and keeping their employees happy.
Speaker 2:That's really critical. There's a huge talent shortage right now and if the tools that you're using make you miserable, you don't want to use them and that really does drive churn. I mean it is very clear that there's this moment when people buy Ninja and start using it where they say they have that sigh of relief, that moment, and they're like I didn't realize how much tension and like challenge and difficulty there was with this, with this old tool that I had and it just works in Ninja and we've really invested there because we think it's a major differentiator for us. You know we have things like it takes on average, like seven to nine days for a technician to really learn Ninja and like be an expert in it. You know you can always learn more and we always add more. So there's always more to learn and do and become a more expert person.
Speaker 2:But you can really say that you have proficiency with Ninja in. You know seven to nine days on average. It takes, you know, 30 days or less for most of our customers to be fully onboarded and achieving value from Ninja One. That's unheard of in the large scale like endpoint management space, you just don't see it. And sure, there are some implementations that are more complex and take more time, and there are organizations that are maybe more conservative or less, so you'll see spectrums there. But ultimately, by having a maniacal focus on ease of use and intuitiveness in the platform by providing incredibly clear training certification documentation.
Speaker 2:we help there as well. We offer free and unlimited onboarding, training and support, which means we're always there to help you get more value out of the NinjaOne platform. And then something my team does is really help educate our customers about how to get the most value out of Ninja. And then something my team does is really help educate our customers about how to get the most value out of Ninja. Taking all those things together from a pure product focus to how we approach our customers and support and enable them to ensuring that we're delivering education and value to our customers through our educational programs Like taking all of that together, you end up with a customer base who are rabid about their support of Ninja One.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic to hear. So you're one of the big players out there really investing in product development and functionality and roadmap. Can you give us a peek into you know new innovations or features, maybe related to Gen, AI or otherwise, that you're really excited about without you know, giving away the farm, I guess?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm really excited about so much that has come out recently in Ninja and is coming out. One I'd love to highlight is our first AI use case. You know, patching is such a critical process and we rely so heavily on the vendors who are rolling out these patches to provide us with a patch that's going to work well in our environments, and we know that that's not always the case that the patch that you deploy is going to be a positive experience for everyone. Let's say and so we rolled out our patch sentiment AI feature last year, late last year, and what it does is it looks at what the market is saying about a patch and if the market is saying you're all good, then it's all good, you move forward right.
Speaker 2:But we also give you the ability to say, hey, there's a problem with this, people are having a negative reaction to this patch, and so we're going to tell you that you need to dig in here and make sure that you're not going to break your environment when you roll out this patch.
Speaker 2:And I'll give you two examples. Not long ago, there was a patch that rolled out where, if you're running Azure Virtual Desktop, a Windows patch would actually crash it on the device. You're able to identify that and stop customers from rolling that out in their environment when they were using AVD, so that they didn't have this large-scale end-user computing crash. Similarly, there was a patch not long ago where Windows Server was updated to the most recent version, which has a licensing impact, but it also has compatibility impacts. We were able to stop that as well and identify via AI hey, there's a problem here, there's a likely impact where this is going to upgrade you to the latest version. You make the decision, but ultimately, we're giving you information to help you make better decisions, and that's really our ethos around AI is. There are some things that AI is really good at it's sourcing large amounts of data, synthesizing it down and providing that information to people who can make really better decisions than they could before, and so this is our first version.
Speaker 2:We're actually enhancing that in upcoming releases, where we're going to allow that category of unknown issues probably needs attention, or this is fine, and allow that to actually stop a patch from going out. If it's in that known issues category, you have it automated via Ninja to deploy all security patches, for example. And that goes out, let's say every day every week, every month, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:We're actually going to give the ability for you to say if a patch comes in that has known issues, don't deploy it, and let me know right. Right now it's manual and really impactful, as I've said, but being able to actually shunt a patch out of automation based on known issues from the market, I think is really impactful. We have others coming around. You know our ticketing solution around the end user experience and a few other options, but you know this first one around patching is really, really exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a blockbuster release, to say the least. You have so many customers in so many different industries and verticals. You know it's hard to give examples, but care to talk about any particular success stories or industries where you're seeing particular traction success stories or industries where you're seeing particular traction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we see the most success in organizations that have a couple different characteristics. They recognize the challenge posed by a highly disparate technology stack. That's number one. Once you get to the point where you feel the pain of legacy on-prem technologies that are siloed and unintegrated, that don't work together, that's a really big call for a new way to do things, a modern, turnkey, saas-based approach to endpoint management, and more and more companies are seeing that and looking for other options. So that's number one.
Speaker 2:Number two is that highly distributed environment right, when you have lots of people in lots of places, when you have to support hybrid and field and remote workers as well as in-office workers. That's the second. And the third is those organizations that have unique compliance and security requirements right. As I said, if 80% of IT people have direct security responsibilities, they need a tool that gives them visibility and control and scale management of their devices, and Ninja offers that, and so we're seeing a lot of success in organizations like finance, security technology, healthcare. For that particular reason. I'll give you one really great example. We have a partner who is going through hyper growth. They were hiring like a thousand employees a year.
Speaker 2:And they thought they were going to have to hire 20 more. It people to support that motion. Right If you look at things like onboarding and enablement and all of that you needed about 20 new FTEs to support this massive scale that they were building. They were actually able to bring on Ninja sort of at the start of hyper growth and they avoided hiring 17 of those people because, they were able to automate.
Speaker 2:Now they did hire some of them, but not for this, not to manage endpoints and onboard employees. They were able to hire those people for more strategic, important tasks by automating away this pain around manual processes, and that's a really good example that you see across a lot of our customers. It's a very common use case, but ultimately it's about identifying. It's not really cost savings. We don't want to replace people. We want to shift people over into more critical tasks that drive additional business value, and you see that quite often with our customers.
Speaker 1:Wow, well, that's a mic drop moment and, on that note, thanks so much for the insight and the update, really compelling Onwards and upwards.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, Evan. Really appreciate you inviting me on.
Speaker 1:Thanks and thanks everyone for listening, watching and sharing. Take care.