In this episode, host Daniel welcomes Jason Kemsley to discuss the evolving landscape of Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Jason shares his insights on the three Cs that will define successful MSPs by 2026: Consolidation, Certification, and Compliance. The conversation explores the importance of niching down and standardising operations to thrive in a competitive market. They also delve into how certifications can enhance credibility and the role of compliance in achieving market leadership. The episode concludes with a brief teaser for a future aviation-themed episode, promising an interesting twist on the discussion.
00:00 Introduction and Warm-Up
00:38 The Three Cs of MSPs in 2026
01:41 Consolidation: The First C
18:16 Certification and Standards: The Second C
22:51 Compliance: The Third C
26:50 Shameless Plug and Future Plans
Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Connect with Jason Kemsley on LinkedIn by clicking here –https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-kemsley-630983159/
Connect with Daniel Welling on LinkedIn by clicking here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielwelling/
Connect with Adam Morris on LinkedIn by clicking here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcmorris/
Visit The MSP Finance Team website, simply click here –https://www.mspfinanceteam.com/
MSP Glossary: MSP Finance Glossary Explained | MSP Finance Team
We look forward to catching up with you on the next one. Stay tuned!
Transcript
Hello everyone. Welcome to It’s A Numbers Game. Today we are joined by Jason Kemsley from Uptime for a really interesting chat about what MSPs should be focusing on as we head towards 2026. Jason sums it up nicely with what he calls, that’s three Cs, and there’s loads of good stuff in here for anyone running or growing an MSP.
So in this episode, you’ll hear consolidate. Why narrowing your focus can help you win more of the right clients. Certify how introducing proper standards can make your business run smoother and more profitably. And lastly, compliance. What it really means for MSPs and how to stay on the right side of it.
So, quick catch up. I’m actually not in this episode. I was off on holidays somewhere sunny while Daniel took on the reigns. . So I’ll hand you over now to Daniel and Jason for the conversation.
Daniel: Jason, welcome to the program.
Jason: Thank you for having me, Daniel. Pleasure. Been waiting for this.
Daniel: We, we’ve been threatening it for a while now, haven’t we? So, I’m happy we’ve made it happen.
Jason: Absolutely. And, I’ve listened to a few to know what I’m in for and, go easy.
Daniel: the good news for you is that my co-conspirator Adam, is actually on leave at the moment. So normally he’s the one that throws in the sort of testy, testy question. But, I’ll see if I can represent Adam and throw one or two at you just to keep you on your toes.
Jason: I look forward to it. I look forward to it. Okay. game, face initiated.
Daniel: face on. So, I arrived at this episode thinking we were gonna talk about the. Increasing internationalization of the MSP market and supply chain. but, you’ve actually come prepared with an even better topic, which is, your predictions for what the MSP of 2026 should be focusing on.
And even better, you’ve created us a nice click Basey title with the three Cs. So, Perhaps, we could kick off with the first one.
Jason: Absolutely. So I should first and foremost say 16 years in this industry, or 17. It served me well to just be. Blunt and to the point with my thoughts, right? Even if it doesn’t link in with what we do at uptime. and the things that I am suggesting focusing on, are three Cs, which is consolidate, certify, and compliance. As with any alliteration, they might skew off slightly into other areas, because, it’s nice and it’s beautiful to have, matching starting letters. Of course. but really just to go into them and the first one specifically, consolidating is often perceived I think in a negative way.
if you say I’m consolidating, I think it’s got negative perceptions.
Daniel: is what is where I go straight away. Like that’s smaller. That’s not as good. Right?
Jason: Absolutely. and I can see that, but I think we should flip the script and see it in a positive, and I come at this from, a slightly different angle. So if we put the business in a hypothetical funnel, so to speak, usually you start at the top with the marketing down to the sales, et cetera. the number one rule in marketing, I think, and if you disagree, I’d love to debate it, is, having a very clear audience and persona that you can target. And the more you can niche down on that, the more you can consolidate down all of your angles, audiences, et cetera, into one thing. The more hyper-focused you can be, the more hyper-targeted you can be, the higher your conversion rate, success rate, et cetera, et cetera. What I’m suggesting is that applies to the entire MSP business. Operationally, we see so many MSPs trying to do a bit of every service, a bit of soc, a bit of compliance, maybe as a service, bit of VCIO, a bit of help desk or out of hours. now we’re doing, we’re seeing a lot of, Authentication things or passing on password managers. We, we are trying to do a bit of everything, and that works great for adding SKUs, service lines increasing partner value. What it means is effectively, you’re not a master of any of them. almost becoming that jack of all trades, common analogy. And so I’m suggesting that moving into the next iteration of the MSP landscape, you know, the end of 2025, start of 2026, what we wanna do is consolidate our audience, consolidate our offering, consolidate our messaging, and. Become hyper-focused on an area. It doesn’t mean you won’t do the other areas to be crystal clear. You’ll have them, but they are not an objective focus with the same lens that you apply to everything else. So as an example, the MSPs I see winning right now in the market are the MSPs that focus on a couple of specific verticals. Let’s just take lawyers and accountants. They’re the easy ones because they’re professional services. They create very targeted, very specific case studies for those verticals. They provide the messaging that is hitting the pain point of the vertical. So in the legal world, it could be compliance, regulation, surrounding in accounting, something else, whatever it might be. They have a very clear message, simplified message that has been honed down no longer IT support no longer digital transformation. A very simple pain point message, and then operationally, everything is built around their sole. One or two. You could do a second, one or two very excellent areas, and they are your, your magnet areas, so to speak.
They’re the reason that people come to you. They’re drawn to you. They initially talk to you. It doesn’t mean they then don’t venture out into other areas. Does that make
sense?
Daniel: ab. Ab, absolutely. and I think to just clarify what you’re talking about, here you are, you’re talking about the new business messaging. And then the first service. So if I’m an existing client of an MSP, I’m now less, less niched in terms of a service. So, ’cause I may still wanna consume those other activities.
So is this specifically new business or the wider existing business as well.
Jason: The entirety.
it’s very difficult to become known for everything. It is much easier to become known for
and so, to give you maybe a real world example. Tesla’s probably a recent to try and keep our analogies
and things, fairly
streamlined. Tesla created a brand very quickly. you look at the rest of their market. So, comparatively to, to what it took all of the other companies in that industry to get to market and to get the brand pushed out truly worldwide, was rather remarkable. And I believe that they were somewhat able to achieve that because their product, their service. but in this case, product was super niche. It was a relatively uncomplex, offering as in you knew what you were getting, but it was an electric car that was better than the rest. And they, you know, I know they, they possibly could veer off in other directions at some point, but they are known for Tesla.
Oh, that’s an electric car. If you’ve seen an electric car, I think the first brand that comes to mind is Tesla. They’ve niched down, not tried to do all of them. They were first to market to do that, in the broad spectrum. And so they’re no now known as the pioneers of that. Even if actually it’s arguable, they’re somewhat way behind some of the other manufacturers, but they’ve put their rubber stamp and I think we are coming into this era where, if I asked you who are the top three MSPs in the uk? in terms of growth or whatever, I think we all have slightly different threes that we would
share because I don’t think anyone’s quite put their rubber stamp on being the pioneer or being the leader in that market there’s a different, there’s one that wins and revenue. Revenue, there’s one that will win on churn.
there’s different metrics, coming into 2026 and you will get onto compliance and certification, et cetera. There is going to be, I think an MSP or a few MSPs that separate from the pack with EBITDAs that no others have offerings that others might be able to compare with, but, others don’t have and will therefore, I assume, have a messaging that others just don’t touch or don’t reach in terms of sim simplicity.
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Daniel: Right. Yeah. really interesting. And ju just my mind. I’m so, so glad you used the car analogy. As you know, IK kind of like my, my, my cars and and transportation and, I, I’m actually so someone that Sony only flirted with the electric car, revolution. And, when you were talking there about, yeah.
Tesla becoming the first sort of recognized one, almost like the jacuzzi of, of Bopa, or the, the hoover of vacuum cleaners and, but yeah, I was trying to think what the earliest electric car, and I know there, there were some, right? The very beginning of the, of the 20th century, electric before the.
the ice took over. But, yeah. More, more, more recently you had, well, milk floats. whoever makes them. why didn’t they cash on as, family transportation and, and of course the, what was that little free wheeler? The, was it a sin Sinclair? That, that, Yeah, you can. really hyperfocus on, on one thing. And of course, Tesla have done other things, the Powerwall and and such like, but but yeah, ultimately they’ve stuck to their knitting and, and also their client. They’ve, they have, they’ve been true to who their client is.
They’ve not tried to cater to everybody, but. In their marketplace is slightly different because, well, is it because it’s a really high growth market because they are winning both, both from net new. car owners, drivers, but also taken away from the incumbent, combustion, base as well.
So, and the MSP is true of that. there, there are, there’s a constant increase in the number of businesses that require. It management, or whatever description, umbrella description you wanna put across the top of it. And, and they are now consuming more and more, for example, in security, in ai, and, and so forth.
So, so yeah, perhaps it’s not dissimilar to Tesla. You know, there’s quite a few lessons that can be learned there.
Jason: and I’ll give you, I’ll
give you a flip side analogy, just to, and it’s, I hope none of this is controversial. But,
Daniel: We’ll edit it out if it is.
Jason: Facebook are, you know, huge. they have a, I see in inside Facebook that they would have a true dilemma. Their customer is the advertiser, but their consumer is me and you. And so you are, your growth is forever, on a balancing will of I’m trying to keep both sides happy. ’cause you know, when you in an MSP, if I say, who is your customer?
What’s your ideal customer? We are fortunate that we can. Kind of narrow that down and pick a particular area. and there’s exercises and stuff, to be able to do that. In Facebook’s case, I, you know, I dunno, mark, but I would speculate that, to reach their growth plans, they had to start acquiring what’s happened, the likes, because all the while you have got two audiences, it is so difficult to maintain. growth when you are trying to please multiple people. And I guess that kind of, applies back to MSPs. if you are, you look after an array of people and you, for these, you talk a lot about security for these, you talk a lot about support and whatever the relationship has turned into. I’m sure everyone listening to this has had an, a customer come along and leave them for something that you did do that is hot off the press, but they didn’t know you’d done it. and so going into 2026, if I was starting an MSP, I would think, right, what are gonna be the hot topics for 2026 that get people Googling, searching, ai, et cetera. I would then position all my messaging around, that concept and my own version flavor. Although everything else I do might be the same as the other MSP, I’m gonna get their lead through. I’m gonna be able to cross sell and then take them off in other directions. They’re gonna look at me as someone that is up with the times as opposed to the guy that’s still got on his website.
IT support for whatever it might be.
Daniel: And going back to one of your earlier points, if I don’t agree, we can spiritedly debate. un unfortunately, I probably do agree with you, ma. maybe just a point of clarification here. And when gen, generally, when the topic turns to niche in. My, my natural inclination is to, have multi niche.
So, I’m not, I’ve not got absolutely all of my eggs in one basket. And perhaps we’re getting to the definition here of, if I’ve,if I’m leading to market with, let’s say, an AI. Con consultancy. that’s my,AI enablement for, for, the legal market, for example.
do I then have another, separate entity that provides, comms and te telecoms? do I have another entity that provides infrastructure? services, do I have another entity that provides security? and each one of those is multi niched and around a, or a hyper niche, sorry, around a particular service.
where’s the dividing line? can I, as a group of businesses provide that sort of full stack? Or could I do this divisionally within a single entity and perhaps have, I’ve got my, my infrastructure team, my security team, my AI team.
Jason: I think that’s that. It’s a very interesting question. Three years ago, I would’ve said, split them all out and have multiple niches. It is a complete gut feel. I do not have the data to back up the claim I’m about to make. I do feel that we’ve just switched the value proposition of an MSP in the marketplace. Where should an epidemic come around a recession come around? The value understanding of a managed service provider is now sufficient enough. That you wouldn’t be the first thing to go, or, you know, you would be seen in the essential category. I don’t have the evidence for that. I just, every day that passes, we are increasing our credibility, in most businesses’ eyes. and so if not just yet, I would suspect in the next six, 12 months, we no longer have to consider splitting it out.
I think about if I was a, an AI first legal. Like you mentioned, and I know I’m gonna get them in for that and then spread them elsewhere and they’ll do other things. If I was to hit a recession or the legal industry was to have a substantial change, I think MSPs are now considered, or I think by way of niching, my value proposition is so much higher that I will not be one the first on the chopping block
Daniel: times get tough.
great point. The fact that you have niched is what protects you from the generalist or they just do reactive support when something goes wrong and, nothing’s gone wrong recently, so we definitely don’t need them.
Jason: And it allows you to have those core conversations. You know, you being niche allows you to really take authoritative control of conversations. and demand a level, and it’s a bit of an ego trick, but demand, when I say demand, a level of respect. What I mean is when you say you should do this thing, they’re listening.
You grab their attention. They’re not just seeing it as a, oh, they’re trying to get me to buy something else, or they’re trying to get more work out of me. And I’ve talked about it a lot in my past about, the four values of the four levels of relationship you hold with a customer. And number four being that sort of, strategic level. and that level usually comes with you being seen as an expert in a particular area, which commands you command more of a voice when you then go and talk about that particular area.
Daniel: Got it. and of course, solving another issue along the way, which, I know a lot of MSPs struggle with is, the level of contact that, that they’re able to maintain within their clients. So. you wanna be talking to a decision maker with ultimate, budget and authority.
and, and you end up not talking to that person, and then relying on that person to convey the messaging to the ultimate decision maker who says, no, we don’t need that. nothing’s gone wrong. Nothing’s gone wrong. listen again to the next quarter. if you’ve got time, if you’ve got time.
And, but yeah, if you are at that, that higher elevated, authoritative position, you’re probably talking to. to the senior leadership team, or cer certainly to pe people with decision making authority and,and so, yeah. yeah. all of it’s a, a virtuous circle, I think is the term.
Jason: Absolutely, and it doesn’t mean you know better than that other person, just to
be clear.
Daniel: The real world analogy. If someone wants to, translate this, if I go and see my doctor, my gp, and he says, Jason, I think you have problem.
Jason: A, he sends me to a specialist who says, you’ve got problem
- We all trust. We all as a human.
I’m gonna go, I’ve got problem B because he’s a specialist and he’s, he knows more about this. He’s done more thorough things, or he is gone down this particular path. They both arguably could give me similar advice or could be right, but I naturally gravitate to. I’ve seen a specialist, the specialist told me this, and I think it applies in many
walks of life.
And it doesn’t mean that either one is right or wrong. it doesn’t mean that any, either one has more authority, like neither one can really, say I’m better than the other person, or vice
versa. But, perception wise, and I, perception’s a big word for me at the moment. I’ve been doing quite a lot of reading about it and other things, but perception wise, it drastically changes how you enter the room.
Daniel: Right. Yeah. And make, makes a lot of sense. so I guess we should move on to the other two Cs now, although,how far away from those are? We like that first one. That’s a pretty, pretty big deal. Do these other two naturally just follow on?
Jason: they do naturally, intertwine. and arguably you can only do two and three if you do one, if that makes sense. But let me give you, number two. So number two is all about certification or to branch it out further certification and standards. So let’s assume someone has niched down, but you might not have. The next part is about standardizing your business. We have all absolutely banged on about this. I know in event space and other items for years and years,I think it’s been easier than ever, but also harder than ever to standardize. Now, but we’ve, we, I am starting to see some MSPs talk about price points and, competitive price points that mean that some of them are not surviving without standardization.
So I’m rearing its head again because I think it’s. It’s a critical item now that people need to look at or consider. And so certifications is a great way to create standards in your business, whether it be an ISO certification, whether it be something like A-C-C-M-C-M-M-C, HIPAA, whatever it looks like. They all force you down a best practices line of thinking, which then inadvertently takes you down the journey of. Translating everything into a process or a template or an automatable task or whatever that might be. and I don’t see a world where, nonstandard MSPs in some, you know, that are using it in some way, shape or form, survive past the end of 2027. It is a bold statement. I’m sure there’ll always be room for them, and room for some. But, just some of, you know, I’m sure you like us, we hear lots of, I was bidding at this price, I got undercut by this, et cetera. Just some of the price points that are now starting to be not reached. ’cause there’s always a cap somewhere or something. some of the driving the market down, we are seeing. does mean that it’s only you are only able to complete, compete with the market when you, standardize your offering from top to bottom.
Daniel: and indeed going back to our first, points, if you, that, that virtuous circle, you, you are perceived to be a higher. Quality, a higher value, and therefore that supports a higher price. And, then when you layer on top the certification, if you’ve not got a higher price, then you’ve not got, a sustainable business model.
And, I think to your point about there being a finite. A point for the non mature, advanced, modern MSP, to survive from. I think actually it’s governed by what the client base is. And as long as there are. Low maturity clients, they will seek out and buy from low maturity MSPs.
and the same is true at the higher end and the worst place to be, well stuck in the middle. so actually niche into one of those. Either you are low maturity and you serve the low maturity market, or you are high maturity and you serve the high maturity market. and that then. goes some way towards, squaring the circle in terms of price.
Jason: Absolutely, and I’m sure we agree on this, but it, in all the governments around the world, their goal is to get rid of the low maturity
I, and I truly believe somewhere in some meeting, in any government, they’re thinking, how do we lower our risk?
we’ve got medical companies reliant on tech. Is open an open door. And if they get into that, they get into that. And, so, you know, we speak a bit about government frameworks and, those types of things. I think we’d all like to be on the right side of the maturity line, but that line is, never been challenged as much as today. And you let’s not get into economic or geopolitical activities around the world.
But,it does feel like we. We wanna stay on the right side of that for as long as possible.
Daniel: Agreed. Agreed and yeah, Gen generally. I see,I see your point. I fear the timeline is pro, probably not as, pronounced, but over, over time. Absolutely. I can see, I can see us getting there and of course. as we, the MSP market evolve, so so does everyone else, the, the bad actors and the clients, and it’s a con, continual process of, evolution for us all.
We’re at whatever side of the table we,we sit on. and does that lead us into compliance then as our final c?
Jason: It does. It does. And,I think the comp compli to put the, I guess the compliance is the icing on the cake. this has been full of analogies and some of them very poor. This one may be my best one. the IC
Daniel: I don’t.
Jason: we’ll debate after we. If you niche down and you standardize a, it becomes far easier to adhere to compliances. but secondly, it allows you to push that, theoretical level beyond that of all your competition. So let’s just imagine for a moment, I am an MSP. I’ve niched down. I provide services to accountancy and legal. I’ve standardized my operations.
I’ve got same software in every one, same stack, whatever that looks like. I’ve got all my certifications, et cetera. Now, when I take a step towards compliance, I am all I can go for the moon. If I want to, as in I could ramp up however many or however much, badges or, if I wanna enter the government frameworks or whatever it is you are entering, becomes a very simple and executable task, which sets you in your own. You are competing with 3% in the market rather than 90% in the market or whatever. which slowly starts again in creating, the value gaps and the value increments that you go on. So compliance for me, for everything you do in the compliance world or everything you tick off. You are reducing your competitive market, you’re up against.
So, we have ISO 27,001 as a compliance thing and there’s some compliance angles, with NIST and stuff there. The minute I do that right, I’m now only competing. Against 40% in the market. They’ve also got that. Now I’m going down again right now in that 40%, there’s only two that have got what I’ve got here and I’m picking best practice, right?
So now I’m only actually truly competing with 20%. And the goal being that once I’ve standardized niche, this isn’t a complex task. The reason cyber essentials plus is a bit of a headache for some people is ’cause they’re not where they wanted to be. And so now doing this thing, that should be simple and easy. Okay? I know it’s not always simple and easy, but it should be simple and easy. If your business is where you wanted it to be, to just stamp a cyber central plus on it and go shout about it. But typically I see it’s not because you are nowhere near where you want to be and therefore doing cyber central plus is the only thing that gets you to go and take action on the things you’ve been putting off for. Two years, three years, whatever it might be. And so compliance is just the ice on the cake that forces you to bring the rest of it all into one and take action on the things that you’ve been waiting to take action on.
Daniel: Yeah, really it’s accountability, in insofar as, you know, whatev whatever moves the needle. to, to an agreed standard. And again, all interconnected as you quite rightly said, compliance certification,the,1, 1, 1 leads to the other and, yeah, ums sounds very solid and that.
The power of free. So we’ve got a triangle, which is which is a good solid, I dunno, could we have a triangular cake? I suppose a piece of cake is triangular.
Jason: Yeah,
Daniel: I think we’ve just added the fourth
Jason: the advice for 2026 is be a piece of
Yeah. piece of cake. and obviously there’s a million directions you can go off in, but I’m just
trying to keep it simplistic to I, I’ve got so many things I stress about every day and I have to check myself. I’m sure you have the
same. If there’s three things that really move the needle in 2026, this is just my hot take on what I think they are and should be.
Daniel: Yeah, no, very good. And really interesting con conversation. It is about this time in the episode that we offer, a shameless plug to our guest, which of course could just be, if people are interested in this and they’re thinking about their seeds for 2026, and they want to, they wanna talk about them.
how best to get in touch.
Jason: I’ll do the opposite with my shameless plug. obviously add me on LinkedIn, Jason Kemsley, K-E-M-S-L-E-Y, from uptime, but rather than talking about uptime. Debate me about what I said. I wanna know where there might be flaws or holes or where I need to consider other things. ’cause I get asked a lot.
I’m sure you get asked a lot. And actually what I’d love more than anything is a bit of a debate on anything people might disagree with. ’cause I wanna refine that before I give, those answers to everyone that asks me.
Daniel: So you, you want to battle, test your cake for.
Jason: I’d like to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, our industry is full of very intellectual individuals, and so I know there’s gonna be someone listening that goes, well, that analogy doesn’t work ’cause of this, or, that’s got a flaw there. I’d love to hear them because it is challenging, right? It’s challenging not knowing where we’re going. but I’m just trying to pull these things I see into one to try and, guide what’s gonna, what’s gonna be next.
Daniel: No, and I think, you made a, you made an excellent first, first step towards, towards that and within with plenty of time as well. before, before next year. and, yeah, we look forward also to next year to. for my other podcast, channel cars,we might actually amend that to channel planes.
So, tell us a little bit about what I’ve got to look forward to hopefully, in 2026.
Jason: So we are gonna, we are gonna, I know you’ve started this cars and going see a car. I’m gonna be honest, my car’s not that. interesting. Tesla just does what it says on the tin. so let’s try and see if we can switch it up and, there’s a selection of planes in the club that I’m thinking about, but I think for you and, what you’re involved with, we are gonna have to pick, The C 62, which is a micro light. It’s a small two seater plane. cruising 70 miles an hour, 75 miles an hour, will take off from an old World War II airfield. In Sussex, obviously we’ll have a look around the plane and stuff. First, make sure you’re comfortable, safe. and then hopefully we’ll be able to get you in the skies above, above the Sussex downs.
And we might even be able to talk more once we’re up in the air and you’ve recovered.
Daniel: Ooh, there, there’s an idea. Perhaps we could do a follow on episode, in the sky.
Jason: Absolutely. I look forward to it.
Daniel: Okay. I am, I’m gonna put on my, my big boy trousers on that day. And I’m really looking forward to,to, to the challenge. I’m sure, I’m sure very safe, but nonetheless, I don’t want to, don’t wanna spill my gin and tonic ’cause we, as we come into land, so,
Jason: I might need to reset the expectations,
just before, but there might be a bottle of water on board if you need it.
Daniel: Okay. very good. and I’ve already got an idea for an episode. if anyone’s listening and they have a C 63, perhaps we could record, a dual episode, C 62 and C 63 all in the same. So, Jason, it is been an absolute pleasure talking to you. long overdue, and really enjoyable.
Thank you so much for joining the program.
Jason: Thanks for having me and thanks for listening.