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The extent of the proliferation of endpoints and how IT service providers (ITSPs) are reacting to it has been revealed in a new survey released by IT management provider Autotask.

More than half of the 1,100 global ITSPs polled (55%) said they have seen ‘significant’ or ‘steady’ endpoint growth, with four in five respondents saying they rely on cloud delivery to manage and secure endpoints.

90% say they offer cloud-based services while 55% say they expect between 11% and 50% growth in client cloud adoption during 2016. Of the cloud offerings ITSPs offer, endpoint management is however only the fifth most popular, behind backup and restore, email, disaster recovery, and hosting.

“Based on the results of this year’s survey, it’s clear that service providers realise the critical need to prioritise how they manage and secure endpoints,” said Patrick Burns, vice president of product management at Autotask. “This is a significant revenue opportunity for them. By ensuring networks of communication are running smoothly, ITSPs will also be in a position to play a more strategic, trusted role, with end clients.”

There are other issues which ITSPs face, according to the report. A quarter (24%) of those polled do not measure service response times, and 31% do not know their SLA first response time. This ties in to the increased demand for managed services as the key reason for renewal rates going up, alongside improved customer service levels and demand for cloud-based services. Similarly, more than half (52%) of those polled said they lose at least 25 hours per week to manual tasks, multiple databases, and on-premise systems.