Auvik CEO: We Have A ‘Dedicated Team’ Focused On Building Out Our Channel Business

Auvik CEO Doug Murray tells CRN he is aiming to put more muscle behind sales, channel marketing and a go-to-market strategy to grow the channel business -- and making it one of the fastest-growing parts of the company is ‘top of mind.’

In the last year, Auvik has seen 45 percent year-over-year growth, which CEO Doug Murray said is the result of an array of actions.

Two of the top reasons for growth, he said, were increasing sales capacity and homing in on the company’s ideal customer.

“We also included a few small tuck-in acquisitions, which are now turning into new products that we’re selling,” Murray told CRN. “We are also moving to build out the channel as the channel is super important for us.”

Today Auvik emphasizes leveraging MSPs and other channel partners to reach the market, which accounts for 80 percent of its revenue, according to the company.

“We have a dedicated team that’s focused on [the channel] now, which we didn’t have before,” Murray said. "Having it where it becomes one of the fastest-growing parts of the company is clearly something that’s top of mind for me.”

Going forward, Murray said he is aiming to put more muscle behind sales, channel marketing and a go-to-market strategy to grow its channel business.

Murray also teased a new offering coming out later this year.

“It’s in beta but the cool part is it’s being built making sure that the integrations that we have and that experience [where] you go to a single pane of glass with all of the products are there,” he said.

Here is more from CRN’s interview with Murray about Auvik’s rapid growth, MSPs’ challenges and what’s to come for the company.

Auvik has seen 45 percent year-over-year growth. What do you attribute that growth to?

Investmentwise, we did a financing round back in 2021 with a new investor that came in. We really used that investment as a vehicle to double down on multiple facets of the company: increased sales capacity and a focus on our ideal customer profile. We also included a few small tuck-in acquisitions, which are now turning into new products that we’re selling. We are also moving to build out a channel as the channel is super important for us. That’s a big motion for us moving forward. We also have an OEM [relationship] with ConnectWise, so you bolt all of those together with sales and go to market … it all comes together to create added layers in terms of how we go to market. I think all of that contributed, in some way, to the continued growth of the company.

How do you plan on keeping that momentum going?

We’re a velocity play. It’s making sure that we have marketing demand gen, sales capacity, sales hygiene and really understanding your business. It’s everything from the average deal size to how long it takes for a given deal to close. Because the business has been around for the better part of a decade with network management, that part is something that we can actually manage very closely. Some of that is continued investment in going to market as well as channel marketing. Beyond that, it’s really about activating some of these bets we made like the expansion of our OEM relationship with ConnectWise and doing more with the channel. The broader context for the company is we believe in a world where frictionless IT accelerates everyone’s potential—that’s our tagline and how we focus on things.

What’s your biggest challenge right now?

As we’ve grown, and we’ve grown quite a bit in the last three years, moving from a company that did all of IT network management exceptionally well [to a] brand that’s multiproduct, it’s about navigating continued expansion of the fast-growing corporate IT sector we see. There’s a lot of new muscle for us. For us, it’s adapting to that and bringing people in that have the experience around the channel and around some of these new selling motions as we continue to do a lot of work around AI. It’s natural for people at the growth stage to have growing pains—you’re going from doing one thing to walking and chewing gum at the same time.

What are your MSP partners’ biggest challenges, and how is Auvik helping with that?

They see the same trends with AI—everybody has AI in some way, shape or form. But what’s interesting is that ... when you talk to MSPs in particular, their customers are doing so many things. Being able to help streamline and simplify this for them sounds simple, but it’s really hard. The majority of how people program and upgrade and all that is done manually today. It’s focusing on automation, not just simplicity in terms of identifying things but trying to automate more and more.

Can you tease any more about the new offering coming out later this year?

It’s in beta but the cool part is it’s being built making sure that the integrations that we have and that experience [where] you go to a single pane of glass with all of the products are there. You’ll be able to actually have one experience for the whole thing, and that’s really hard to do.