Odaseva Launches MSP Program For Salesforce Data Protection

‘MSPs are where the real rubber hits the road. MSPs working with Salesforce already understand customer need and the gaps in the coverage. MSPs are still a small part of the overall Salesforce channel ecosystem, but it is the fastest-growing part. Salesforce has an MSP program to support that motion. We felt we should take advantage of the MSP wave,’ says Matt Morris, Odaseva’s vice president of alliances.

Matt Morris

Odaseva, a developer of enterprise data protection technology for the Salesforce ecosystem, recently launched its first MSP partner program aimed at helping channel partners provide new services for their Salesforce customers.

Odaseva is an ISV partner in the Salesforce ecosystem with a focus on data lifecycles, backups, and business continuity filling what has become a big gap when it comes to customers working with Salesforce, said Matt Morris, vice president of alliances for San Francisco-based Odaseva.

“Salesforce customers assume their data is protected in the cloud, and it is,” Morris told CRN. “But there’s no backstop if an administrator deletes a file. Also, Salesforce is often set up outside a customer’s corporate IT infrastructure. And the Salesforce platform is unique with idiosyncrasies that we understand.”

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The move to build an MSP partner program is important for Odaseva and its channel, Morris said.

“We recognize that every company we go to has channel partners embedded in them,” he said. “The partners understand those customers well. We built our platform as a way for MSPs to add to their toolbox. We know partners are the way to go. We want to make it easier for them.”

While up to 60 percent of Odaseva’s business is touched by or influenced by, the company previously had no formal channel program, and realized that it really does need one, Morris said.

“MSPs are where the real rubber hits the road,” he said. “MSPs working with Salesforce already understand customer need and the gaps in the coverage. MSPs are still a small part of the overall Salesforce channel ecosystem, but it is the fastest-growing part. Salesforce has an MSP program to support that motion. We felt we should take advantage of the MSP wave.”

Odaseva, whose name combines “oda” from the French word “audace,” or bold and daring, with “seva,” a Sanskrit word meaning “selfless service,” reflects the French-Cambodian ancestry of the company‘s CEO and founder, Sovan Bin. The company, founded about 10 years ago, in early 2019 received an $11.7 million investment from Salesforce.

Salesforce, and protecting data in the Salesforce ecosystem, is by no means a niche market, said Scott Richmond, Salesforce alliance and relationship lead at UST, a $2.5-billion Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based solution integrator and ISV with a focus on the vendor.

“Salesforce customers are their own data repositories,” Richmond told CRN. “Salesforce doesn’t keep their data. We specialize in healthcare, where there’s almost a breach a week, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. And healthcare companies pay a lot for ransomware or clean-up.”

Salesforce offers a data protection technology called Salesforce Shield, but Odaseva goes far above and beyond the Salesforce offering, Richmond said. “Odaseva is much more comprehensive,” he said.

While Odaseva has the product, it is looking for implementation partners, Richmond said.

“We have strong expertise in this area, and have the necessary resources on-shore and off-shore,” he said. “I can put a team together in three to four weeks to implement a project for a client.”

Odaseva is focused 100 percent on the Salesforce market, Morris said.

“There’s a lot of room for growth in this space,” he said. “Salesforce is a nuanced platform, and so requires a degree of expertise. And it’s hard to find a company of significant size that doesn’t have Salesforce.”

Odaseva’s new MSP program is a global program with no cost for MSPs to enter, Morris said. The company is offering MSPs a straightforward learning path.

“We’re not teaching partners how to do specific things,” he said. “We’re offering a string or processes to help partners support specific use cases for their customers.”