In this exclusive interview with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine, Maxime Trottier, Chief Revenue Officer at Devolutions, shares his insights on leading the company’s growth and optimizing the customer journey. Maxime is at the heart of Devolutions’ success, guiding initiatives across key areas such as revenue, support, product marketing, and training. He discusses the importance of collaboration and clear communication in driving innovation and ensuring that technology remains accessible and user-friendly. Maxime also highlights how Devolutions continues to focus on delivering exceptional value to its customers, maintaining a balance between business growth and providing a seamless user experience. With his leadership and vision, Devolutions is paving the way for businesses to navigate the evolving tech landscape.
Maxime Trottier is dedicated to driving growth and ensuring an exceptional customer experience at every stage. At Devolutions, he leads initiatives across revenue, support, product marketing, training, and documentation. Whether it’s helping the team achieve major goals, launching innovative ideas, or streamlining the user journey, Maxime is deeply involved in every aspect. He is also a strong advocate for collaboration, clear communication, and making technology feel more approachable and human.
Your latest global IT security report offers valuable insights for SMBs. What were the most surprising findings, and how do they reflect the current cybersecurity landscape for small and mid-sized businesses?
One of the most surprising findings was how many SMBs are still relying on manual methods to manage privileged access — over 52% are using spreadsheets or shared vaults. Despite growing awareness of cyber risks, many organizations haven’t operationalized their strategy. Another major gap: only 20% have a formal insider threat strategy, even though 78% express concern over internal risks.
These findings reflect a broader theme: awareness is rising, but execution hasn’t caught up. SMBs know what’s at stake — but limited time, budget, or staffing often delays critical security upgrades. The good news? There’s progress. Budgets are increasing, AI interest is growing, and more teams are talking seriously about training and access control.
This report reinforces what we hear from SMBs daily: they want practical, scalable solutions that let them strengthen security without creating friction. That’s where Devolutions focuses.
Devolutions was recently recognized as a 2025 Champion in Info-Tech’s Emotional Footprint Report for PAM. What does this recognition mean to you and your team, and how does it influence your approach to customer experience and product development?
Being named a 2025 Champion by Info-Tech — especially in a report driven by real user feedback — means a great deal to our team. It validates our belief that powerful security tools can also be simple, intuitive, and built with people in mind.
Too often, PAM solutions are built for large enterprises. SMBs do not have the budget or the time for solutions that are overkilled and take months to put in place. We took a different approach: we listened to SMBs first, then designed our products around their needs. That means faster deployment, better usability, and pricing that makes sense.
This recognition reinforces our commitment to customer-led development. It tells us we’re on the right track — but it also motivates us to keep improving. Whether it’s refining onboarding workflows, simplifying role-based access control, or expanding Devolutions Academy, we use this kind of feedback as fuel.
To us, this isn’t just an award — it’s a reminder that productivity and security can work together.
Many SMBs struggle to balance robust security with user-friendly solutions. How does Devolutions design its products to make advanced cybersecurity accessible, scalable, and practical for smaller organizations?
At Devolutions, we believe cybersecurity shouldn’t be a burden, especially for small and mid-sized teams. Our solutions are easy to deploy, scalable and affordable without being less secure, so you can start small, tackle top risks, and scale without added complexity.
Flexibility is built-in: we integrate with 200+ tools, including password managers and PAM solutions like CyberArk and BeyondTrust. That means you can extend your existing stack or build a new one, your way.
We design for real-world IT. Features like centralized credential management, just-in-time privilege elevation, and session monitoring are delivered through clean, intuitive interfaces that don’t need a full-time admin.
Our pricing? Transparent and sustainable — no hidden fees, no surprises. Just real value that fits your budget.
And with Devolutions Academy, you get ongoing training and resources to not just use our tools, but strengthen your overall security posture.
The result: enterprise-grade security, made practical for SMBs.
As a Canadian company with a global reach, how does Devolutions tailor its offerings to meet the unique needs of Canadian SMBs, and what advantages do you see for local businesses adopting your solutions?
Being based in Canada gives us a real understanding of what local businesses need — especially in a market that values privacy, compliance, and cost-efficiency.
At Devolutions, we stay closely connected to the Canadian cybersecurity landscape. We’ve even hosted our own event, ITSec, in Quebec for the past four years — bringing together real companies and experts to talk about real security challenges.
What we hear is clear: Canadian SMBs want to improve their cybersecurity, but they’re often overlooked by large vendors with complex, one-size-fits-all solutions.
That’s why we build tools specifically for SMBs, with bilingual interfaces, local data-hosting options, and North American-based support that’s fast, friendly, and understands your reality.
Our solutions give businesses visibility, control, and auditability over remote access, password management, and privileged accounts — without adding unnecessary complexity.
We’re proud to support Canada’s tech ecosystem and help businesses grow securely, on their terms.
Finally, what advice or key takeaway would you like to share with small and medium-sized business leaders looking to strengthen their cybersecurity posture without compromising productivity?
Start small, but start now.
You don’t need a massive budget or a full-time security team to make meaningful progress. Begin with what matters most: control privileged access, train your people, and monitor activity. Even simple steps — like moving away from shared spreadsheets for credentials — can drastically reduce risk.
The biggest mistake SMBs make isn’t doing too little — it’s doing nothing while waiting for the “perfect moment” to invest. But attackers aren’t waiting.
The good news? Today, there are tools designed specifically for your size, speed, and reality. You can strengthen your defenses without sacrificing usability or slowing down your team.
Focus on practical, consistent improvements. Cybersecurity doesn’t have to be overwhelming — it just has to be real.
