Life in the Channel
Google Workspace, DocuSign, BambooHR, Power Apps, Okta, Zoom, you name it. Our own surveys show that large enterprises of 1,000 seats and above
are running close to 100 SaaS applications. Tat’s 100 potential data loss risks if they’re not protected. Keepit’s entire focus is on SaaS data protection. We’re not dipping a
toe in. We’re not a VM backup vendor that added M365 because the market demanded it. We’re purpose-built for SaaS, with sovereign data centres across Europe and no dependency on hyperscalers. Tat’s why demand has surged.
Hyperscaler lock-in is a hot topic. Is the risk real or overhyped? It’s real, but it’s nuanced. Hyperscalers offer huge benefits. But if your entire data protection strategy relies on the same hyperscaler your production environment runs on, you’ve created a single point of failure. Tink of it like locking your house and throwing the keys through
the letterbox. If the platform goes down, and we’ve seen outages from most of the major hyperscalers recently, you can’t access your data, you can’t recover it, and your business stops. Data protection 101 is the 3 2 1 rule: • Tree copies of your data • Two different locations • One off-site copy. If everything sits inside one hyperscaler, you’re breaking that rule. Tis isn’t about abandoning hyperscalers; it’s about having a
Plan B. Outages are increasing, and the geopolitical landscape is more unstable than ever, so organisations need independence and sovereignty in their recovery strategy.
What’s the biggest margin-draining mistake? Not protecting the full SaaS estate. If you’re backing up M365 and Entra ID but not Google Workspace, Okta, DocuSign, or the other 10+ workloads we support, someone else will, either another MSP or the customer themselves. Otherwise, the most significant opportunity is in wraparound
services. For years, partners made great money selling licences alone. But
if you’re only selling a licence today, you’re leaving money behind. Te analogy I hate but still use is: “Do you want fries with that?” If you’re selling a SOC service, for example, but not talking about data protection, recoverability, sovereignty, or the customer’s wider SaaS estate, you’re missing revenue. Partners can build high-margin services around: • First and second line support • Backup as a service • Compliance-driven consultancy • Multi SaaS protection bundles • Migration and recovery services. And because Keepit owns its stack, MSPs can reallocate resources instead of maintaining their own data centre infrastructure, something many invested heavily in pre-pandemic.
What do partners want less of from vendors right now? Inconsistency. Partners want vendors to: • Say what they’ll do
50 | January/February 2026
• Do what they say • Stick to the plan. What they don’t want is vendors changing direction because they’ve had a tough quarter or launched a new product. If a partner has invested in enablement, campaigns, training, and customer conversations, and then the vendor pivots suddenly, it undermines trust. Te channel is saturated. If 100 vendors are throwing incentives at
your sales team, you’re just creating noise. Partners want vendors who align with their priorities, not vendors who expect partners to align with theirs. Consistency is the differentiator.
How do you balance simplicity with the depth of Keepit’s offering when partners have such varied levels of knowledge? We’re storytellers. Tat’s how we bridge the gap. Some partner reps know more about backup than I do, while others are fresh out of college. So, we start with the core value that Keepit protects SaaS data across a wide range of workloads, independently and sovereignly. Ten we anchor it in real-world scenarios. For example, if you’re buying your first house and need to transfer
your deposit within a six-hour window, you’re relying on mobile banking. If the hyperscaler behind that banking platform goes down at that exact moment, everything stops. Your house purchase collapses. But if the bank uses a data protection platform independent of the
hyperscaler, with multiple copies in multiple sovereign locations, the transaction can still happen. Partners don’t need to memorise encryption standards or
compliance frameworks. Tey need relatable stories that help them articulate risk and value to customers.
What partner profiles are growing fastest for Keepit? When I joined three months ago, Keepit was already strong with boutique, regional partners in the SMB and commercial space. Tey were early adopters and delivered significant business. What’s changed recently is the surge in demand from larger
enterprise-focused partners – their customers are asking about Keepit, especially around sovereignty and independence. We’re also seeing strong growth in the MSP space, where
partners want to differentiate and build recurring services around SaaS protection. But we’re not trying to work with everyone. We’re scaling
through distribution to ensure consistency, but we’re still selective. We want partners who invest early and lean in, whether they have 50 salespeople or 1,000.
Finally, what’s your prediction for Keepit in 2026? Continued significant growth, especially in the UK and Ireland, where we’ve invested heavily in both sales and channel teams. We’ll grow strategically with partners who backed us early,
and we’ll continue to make partner-sourced opportunities highly profitable. Our focus is on delivering value, consistency, and independence in a market where SaaS adoption is exploding, and regulatory pressure is tightening. If we stay true to our channel first principles, we’ll achieve our goal of being the most partner-friendly vendor in the market.
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